


Jack O'Neill's Journey Home

by Jeanniemckeown



Category: Stargate SG-1
Genre: Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 11:56:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 42,516
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15509355
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jeanniemckeown/pseuds/Jeanniemckeown
Summary: No matter where he finds himself in space and time, Jack O'Neill will make his way back to his team.An old fic, from nearly a decade ago, uploaded here finally :)





	Jack O'Neill's Journey Home

**Prologue**

It happens. Sometimes the best laid plans are not proof against disaster, sometimes the attack is so unexpected that no retaliation is possible until it's too late... Sometimes the pendulum swings and the luck is bad, rather than good.

That's how it happened on Feydara. The plans in place were impeccable, the security absolute. The first anyone, including Teal'c, knew of the discontented splinter group of Jaffa was when the first laser bombs arced into the compound hosting the General, coming from the very ships placed in orbit to protect him. A fifth columnist on every ship, a dead Jaffa crew, and a courtyard of dead and injured dignatories - how better to announce your newly formed presence?

People died on that day, where they stood. It was Jack's training that saved his life, and Sam's. That little sixth sense, honed through years of being in the field, both with SG-1 and, earlier, on Black Ops. That small flicker of instinct, triggered perhaps by a radio crackling, perhaps by the whine a weapon makes as it breaches the atmosphere. His last conscious image was of the Jaffa he saw hurrying away from the compound, crackling radio in hand, but by then he was already diving, rolling away with Carter pulled down beside him, shielding her with his body as the courtyard exploded around them...

"Med Team STAT! Clear the way, move move!"

"What the hell happened out there? Where the _hell_ is Mitchell?"

"It was his first trip offworld in months... it was supposed to be cocktails and speeches for God's sake!"

"Colonel, you _must_ lie still, you'll pull out the IV line. Dammit! I'll have to resite it..."

"Sam! Sam, I just heard - how are you? Good God, you're injured, sorry, sorry Dr Lam... Sam, where's Jack? How is he?"

"I don't know, no-one will tell me anything, they won't let me up... Find him, please, Daniel? Tell me how he is..."

The voices were fading, even Carter's desperate, choked one, the voice she only used when she was fighting a losing battle with tears. The voices were fading, but the light was brightening, growing translucent, enveloping him in a warm radiance. Ah hell. He really was dead. And he hadn't even had a chance to walk _away_ from the damn light...

General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

His first thought was that he felt remarkably fit for a man who had just been blown up in an aerial attack. The almost constant ache in his bad knees was gone. As, he noted with interest, looking down, were the knees themselves. Along with, apparently, the rest of his body. He could see nothing but the radiance, around and through him. He was pleased to note that even in the absence of any visible body, a definite _himself_ still existed. He was sure he should feel more troubled by this unexpected turn of events, but he felt so peaceful. So relaxed. The lack of a physical body seemed somehow a very negligible thing.

"Do not get too comfortable, General." The voice, cultured, accentless, but definitely female, seemed to come from the air itself. Certainly Jack could see no body attached to it. He debated his options, and as they appeared limited to remaining stoically silent, or playing along, he decided on the latter.

"Hello?" he ventured, and silently cursed his lack of originality. "Um. You appear to have the advantage - I have no idea who I'm speaking to here."

The light began coalescing, pulling together in an almost liquid fashion. Within seconds, a being stood before him, still shimmering faintly, but otherwise appearing quite solid. A pair of dark eyes regarded him intently, and without looking down to check, and with no great sense of surprise, he knew his own form was back, in similar outline.

"There's a word," he frowned, trying to recall it. "Heard Carter use it... means a body that isn't really there?" The statement ended in a question, and the shimmering head nodded.

"The word is _avatar_ General, and you are correct - your current form is not your physical body, merely a representation of it. Your actual body is presently in the Infirmary at the SGC, in a deep coma."

Jack concentrated. Seconds later his hair was a dark brown, and his knees were as effective as they had ever been. He grinned triumphantly, and his companion chuckled.

"Very good, General. Colonel Carter would, I think, be amazed at how much you take in when you are appearing not to listen to her."

Mention of Carter made him feel sad, and his shimmer dimmed.

"So." He rocked on his heels. "I'm a goner then, am I? Bright light, angelic beings, all adds up." But the figure in front of him was shaking her head, and a glimmer of hope sprang up in his chest.

"You are not dead yet, although you are not far from it." Her voice, coolly appraising of his situation, irritated him slightly for some reason, and he shifted his weight. She eyed him, and continued. "And I am not angelic. I do not fit into the Christian mythos at any level." He didn't bother pretending to misunderstand her. It didn't seem the time.

"What are you then?" His voice was direct. "Ascended Ancient? Hologram? _Furling?"_

She laughed, an unexpectedly merry sound, and he felt the tension that had built up begin to dissipate. He grinned back, but didn't give up. "Question holds. Who, or what, are you? And why are you here? In my so-called afterlife?"

Her face sobered, and she held his gaze. Her face, although unlined in appearance, suddenly gave him the impression of great age, and he shivered slightly. The she broke the moment, and turned from him.

"Come, General. Walk with me." She cast an amused look at his legs. "Enjoy those restored knees while you still have them."

"I have to give them up?" He fell easily into place beside her, and she matched his strides.

"When you go back. If you go back." Her even voice gave him no clue as to which was the more likely outcome, and her profile, viewed out of the corner of his eye, was equally unhelpful.

"At this present moment, three doctors are monitoring you; you are out of danger, but, as I said, in a deep coma. Hence your consciousness being able to travel here, and meet with me."

Without breaking step, she turned to him. "I am what _you_ might call an ascended Ascended Ancient. I, and some of my people, progressed further, broke through yet another barrier, and we exist on a plane even further removed from the physical world than the Ancients you have met."

Jack's eyebrows had risen. He'd heard many outrageous stories in his time; what was worrying him now was how plausible this one sounded. Being Jack, he took refuge in a frontal attack.

"So if I would call you an ascended Ascended Ancient, what would Carter call you? Or Daniel?"

She laughed again - it transformed her ageless face into something a lot more human.

"I have no idea what Colonel Carter would term my people. Dr Jackson, well, we are all very curious about Dr Jackson. He seems to make a habit of transversing the planes of being. I'm grateful he remains unaware of our existence for now, or he would be looking for ways to join us. And I, for one, do not relish being the object of his study!"

She had Daniel pegged. Jack pictured those vivid blue eyes alight with the thrill of discovery, and that mouth shooting off at 19 to the dozen, faster than the human ear could hear, and felt suddenly terribly homesick.

"How do I get back?" The question was abrupt, all levity banished, and around them the shimmering light took on a deeper, bronze hue. His companion slowed, and for the first time reached out to him. He watched, fascinated, as their arms met and mingled, but refused to be distracted and returned his eyes to hers.

"It is not simple." She was straightforward, he'd give her that.

"Here, you remember everything about yourself, your life. You know Samantha Carter is your wife, after many years of being an unattainable dream. You know Daniel Jackson is your best friend, the only one who truly understands the man beneath the image you project. You know you can trust Teal'c with your life, and have done so, many times. You are _you_ here... but if you go back now, that will be lost. You will no longer be you."

She was watching him carefully, and Jack wondered if avatars should be able to feel the blood draining from their heads, as he had at her words.

"I'll be a vegetable." His voice was flat, and she nodded, not unsympathetically.

"Tell me how to, how to _not_ be. Tell me what to do." His voice is even, but he is begging. He's pleading with her for his life back, and it's the longest moment he's ever experienced before he sees her nod.

"I'm here to offer you a choice." Her voice is low. "First I need to explain something to you though. Every soul experiences many lifetimes, and each lifetime's purpose is to learn a new lesson, which that soul carries forward to the next, and further, lives. The lesson you are meant to learn in your current life is not yet entrenched as a part of your eternal soul, hence, I am able to offer you this option."

She paused. Jack felt slightly dizzy.

"What, exactly, are you offering me?" The question was sincere, with no sign of his usual sarcasm. In return his companion extended her hand, palm up, and replied simply, "A chance to revisit your past lives, General O'Neill. To take again from them the lesson you learned while living them, so that when you awaken in your own body, you are yourself again."

Her eyes were keen as she continued. "Groups of souls tend to travel through lifetimes together, learning from each other in each incarnation. As you return to lives previously lived, you can expect to encounter souls familiar to you in your present lifetime. However, as you will be in the body of the person you were in that particular incarnation, most of your emotions and reactions will be theirs. There will be a small part of that mind given over to you, allowing you to observe the proceedings."

She paused to draw a deep breath and continued. "I must warn you, General, that time is not linear - your past lives may not necessarily be in your chronological past, as you measure it on your plane of existence."

Jack was shaking his head.

"Why?" He met her gaze head-on. "Why am I being offered this opportunity? What makes me special?"

Her eyes softened, and her hand, or rather the shimmering image of it, raised to his cheek. For a second, he could swear he saw tears glistening in her eyes, but then the moment was gone and the hand withdrawn.

"I can tell you this. The members of SG-1, and the others who go through the Stargate and defend you world and your galaxy, are among the most highly advanced souls on your existential plane. You have come on a long, long journey, and it is nearly complete. There are not many lessons left, and it is important that you learn them."

She shifted back from him, and her avatar stood erect.

"Come, General O'Neill. The time for talking is done. Do you accept my offer?"

Jack thought for a moment. Revisit past lives and relearn what factors shaped who he was, or wake a vegetable... not much of a choice, really. He realised he had spoken those last words aloud when his companion smiled, a truly happy smile, and gestured with one hand towards a swirl of light, which was rapidly coalescing into an archway.

"This way, then, General. And good luck!"

He faced the arch, then looked back. "Thank you" he said, sincerely, "and call me Jack, willya?" Then, taking a deep breath, he stepped through the doorway.

**Chapter 2:  
**

**The SGC**

The briefing was small, and sombre. Teal'c, his arm in a sling and a bandage over one cheek, sat stony faced. Mitchell had escaped relatively unscathed and sported only one bandage, over his left eye. It gave him a rakish air totally out of place in the grim mood of the moment. He was under strict orders not to remove it, as Dr Lam was worried about possible shrapnel damage to the retina. Cam, a true airman, was petrified by this possibility, and desperately trying not to show it.

Daniel and Vala, neither of whom had been at the ceremony, sat next to each other, their faces still showing signs of shock. General Landry was pacing back and forth.

"Well?" He turned to face them, palms up. "What happened? Security was supposedly foolproof, plans were watertight, and yet I still have the Head of Homeworld Security, and his wife, in my infirmary. What the hell happened, people?"

There was a pause, and then Teal'c spoke up, his face, if anything, grimmer than before.

"I have spoken to Bra'tac, General Landry. As you will recall, security was being provided in orbit by Jaffa ships." There was a beat. "Bra'tac reports that on each of the five ships they found the crew dead, minus one member, who had fled in an escape pod."

"Fifth columnists" Cam breathed, and Daniel, face twisting, nodded. Teal'c frowned, and turned to face them.

"I do not know this term, Colonel Mitchell, Daniel Jackson. Of what do you speak?"

Cam opened his mouth, then thought better of it and gestured to Daniel to take over. "You'll explain better than I can, Jackson. My head's scrambled after the light and noise show." He finished his attempt at lightheartedness with a grimace which didn't quite reach the status of a smile.

Daniel took in a breath, then let it out again, staring at his hands. "Fifth columnists. Um, well, the definition of a fifth column is a group of people which, er, clandestinely undermines a larger group, such as a nation, to which it is regarded as being loyal." He looked at Teal'c apologetically. "It looks as though there may be Jaffa working against the united Jaffa Nation in your midst, Teal'c."

"I concur." Teal'c leaned forward, hands flat on the table. "But I _must_ assure you, General, that neither Bra'tac nor myself was aware of any dissidents among the ranks of the Jaffa. Had we had any inkling that such a grouping might exist, we should _never_ have allowed the event to go forward."

It was rare to see the usually impassive Jaffa warrior so impassioned. Landry held up a placatory hand.

"I know, Teal'c, and believe me, no-one is attaching any blame to yourself, or to Master Bra'tac." He sighed heavily, looking suddenly much older. "But the fact remains that I have Jack O'Neill in a deep coma, and Sam with a concussion and assorted other injuries, and no idea why." His frustration was evident in his voice.

"He saved them both." It was Mitchell, speaking up suddenly from the other end of the table. "Those laser bombs were directed at them, but General O'Neill was diving and rolling before they hit. If he hadn't taken Sam with him, she'd be dead now." He glanced round the table, half admiring, half puzzled. "How did he _know_?"

"Well, Jack has a sixth sense about these things." Hank scrubbed his hands over his face, fighting a yawn. It was well into the small hours of the morning by now. "It's what makes him so damn good at what he does. Lets just be grateful he does have it, and work out what we're dealing with, so this doesn't bloody well happen again."

The vehemence in his voice made Vala start, but Daniel nodded, grim-faced, and Cameron and Teal'c exchanged a look.

"With your permission, General, Teal'c and I will leave at dawn to meet with Bra'tac and the other council members." Landry nodded. Daniel, glancing at Vala, spoke next.

"Vala thinks she may know where these laser bombs were purchased, and from whom, General. Permission for us to go check it out?"

"Granted, Dr Jackson. Just be careful, hmm? These guys aren't playing games."

Daniel's face was set. "Yes sir." He cleared his throat. "Sam's asleep at the moment. If she wakes up before we get back," he looked down at Vala's white face again, "tell her we're on the track of whoever did this."

Landry nodded slowly, and the briefing room emptied. He sat alone for a long time, fighting weariness, remembering the battles against the Ori, some years ago now, and wondering if he'd lost his edge.

Eventually, yawning deeply, he made his way to the commissary for strong coffee, and from there back to the infirmary.

Daniel wasn't sure if the entire planet was as seedy as this bit, but he sincerely hoped not. Small huts lined a dusty walkway, and smoke was thick in the air. An acrid, none-too-pleasant tang bit through the scent of woodfires - these people burnt a mild narcotic on their fires. At least, he hoped it was mild. He coughed, gagging slightly, and tried not to breathe.

Vala didn't seem to notice the fetid surroundings. She strode through the sordid little settlement as if she owned it, long hair swinging, nose in the air. Her "don't mess with me" attitude was working; with a few sullen glances and muttered oaths, the grubby denizens of Watlu were giving them a wide berth. They were looking for Jeftin, Vala had told the makeshift guard at the gate, sternly, and did not wish to be bothered by any other so-called _traders_.

Daniel had to admire her act. She played the haughty customer, stooping lower than she'd like, to perfection. If it weren't for the flicking of her fingers against her worn leather trousers, he might even buy it. But he knew her little tics too well by now to be fooled; the insouciance was an act. He hoped Jeftin didn't catch on.

Towards the very end of the settlement a slightly larger hut straddled the footpath, forcing other travelers to divert, grumblingly, around it. This hut was slightly less rundown than the others; Daniel's sharp eyes picked out a number of items of weaponry on the table outside which dated from the time of the Goa'uld, as well as others from the Ori invasion of a couple of years back. He supposed the hardware had to end up somewhere. It was a disquieting thought.

Vala came to a halt outside the door to the hut, and squared her shoulders. Taking a deep breath, she cast him a look and shrugged one shoulder. "Here goes nothing," her look implied, and he nodded in return, raising his eyebrows and casting a sideways glance towards the door. "Best get on with it, then" was his unspoken response. Vala let out the breath she'd been holding, and drew another.

"Jeftin! You horrible excuse for a human being - are you in there?" Daniel winced slightly. His linguist's senses had never got used to Vala's unique methods of communication... although he had to admit they often bore fruit. Ah well. Ducking his head, he followed her into the hut.

"Those laser bombs definitely came from Jeftin." Vala was perched on the foot of Sam's bed, eating her grapes. It was two days later, and the infirmary room was filled with flowers and fruit. "He was extremely cagey about letting me know who he had sold them to, but he caved eventually." She gave Sam a wicked grin, and started on the cherries in the big fruit bowl on the table. Daniel picked up the tale.

"Last month a Jaffa, bearing the mark of Heru'ur, negotiated for a full consignment of bombs and weaponry. Jeftin gave us a description, but it's pretty impossible trying to track a single Jaffa down." He removed the bunch of cherries from Vala, who pouted, and put them into Sam's lap. "It confirms the fifth column theory and gives us a jumping off point, although I would imagine that a movement capable of orchestrating an incident as sophisticated as this one will not be restricting membership to one sect only."

Samantha Carter-O'Neill put a cherry into her mouth, and absent-mindedly handed the rest back to Vala, who grabbed a handful and grinned triumphantly at a scowling Daniel.

"Of course, the Jaffa will know by now that we've been making enquiries." Sam looked pensively around her, and Vala obligingly held her hand under her mouth. Sam, after a moment, spat out the cherry pip and glanced apologetically at Daniel. He hadn't even noticed, being lost in thought and pacing.

"Yes, but that was always going to be the case, after all. They wouldn't expect us to take this lying down. We figured that trying to go in undercover was pointless for that very reason. We can give Teal'c this information to pass on to Bra'tac - they can decide how best to handle the next step."

"We are pretty recognisable," Vala pointed out in turn, passing the cherries back to Sam. "Not to mention that Jeftin knows me from, um, from before." She busied herself rearranging the bedclothes. _Before_ was a time she tried to keep under wraps these days, although Daniel still got endless amusement from some of her stories. The darker stuff, the stuff he tried to get her to talk about "for her own good", she still hadn't really gone into fully. She hoped that perhaps she'd never have to.

"Yeah, I guess." Sam leaned back against the bedrest, looking suddenly exhausted and very white against the sheets. A nurse bustled over, tutted, and injected more drugs into the IV line, before giving Vala and Daniel a pointed look and bustling off. Vala bit her lip and, throwing Sam a quick glance, slipped off the bed and patted the blankets back into place.

"You look worn out Sam. I'll go fetch those magazines I promised you, and drop them back later." She gave Daniel a poke in the arm, which he ignored, and she shook her head, dropping a kiss on Sam's cheek. "See you tomorrow, sweetie. Sleep tight." Then she was gone, and Sam collapsed a little further against the pillows. She liked Vala, they were very good friends, but the other woman's energy tended to make her push herself beyond what was sensible in this state. She was grateful Vala had seen that, and chosen to go when she did.

Daniel, on the other hand, was always a relaxing presence. She'd fallen asleep often enough while he sat or lay beside her. Her eyes were just closing when he spoke, his voice low.

"Sam, before I go... how is he?"

For a moment the only sound was the noise of the machines attached to Jack in the next bed along. The beeps and ticks and whirrs that told them he was still alive, but nothing else. The pause stretched out, and he wondered if Sam had fallen asleep without hearing his question. Then she stirred slightly, shivering.

Without opening her eyes, she answered him in a voice just barely audible.

"Much the same, Daniel. Doc says he's in a deep coma, and she can't really tell why he isn't waking up. The risk is there that his brain functions" her voice trembled "could be severely affected, but we just won't know until he wakes up. She thinks perhaps the coma is his body's way of giving him time to heal."

She felt Daniel's hand on her head, smoothing back her hair, and felt him bend to kiss her cheek as Vala had done. Then she was asleep, the drugs working their magic for a short time.

**Chapter 3:  
**

**Jack**

The transition was instantaneous, and the sudden change from peace to deafening noise and clamour took him completely by surprise. All around him were explosions and gunfire; the air was full of smoke and through the gloom figures could be seen running, toting muskets, firing and falling. Many bodies lay on the ground, sightless eyes open and gaping wounds visible. A musket can make one hell of a mess of man's body, Jack registered dimly, as he staggered forward. His foot caught on something and he stumbled; looking down he could see it was the body of a young soldier, his eye staring in dead terror at Jack, his mouth twisted in a rictus of fear. Half his face was blown away...

Distracted, Jack misstepped, and the musket shot that would have burst his heart grazed his shoulder instead, leaving an icy path across skin and muscle. Before he felt any real pain, an explosion alongside rocked him and, already off balance, he pitched forward. A further blast at close range knocked him into a welcome unconsciousness.

The return to awareness, for Jack O'Neill, was gradual. He was aware of his external surroundings, but initially this was a secondary consideration; he was aware of the body he was in. It wasn't his. He had a few moments of extreme, adrenalin-racing panic before the memory came back - the shimmering golden light, the woman with an ageless face who had offered him a choice. He realised he hadn't, actually, believed her, not viscerally. He did now. This was not the body in which he had spent 50 plus years. This was someone else. Adrift from all that was familiar, he resolutely clung to his innate sense of himself. This body may once have housed his soul, but it had its own story too, and he accepted that he was terrified of letting that story emerge, lest he lose _Jack_ in the process.

Some minutes of fierce internal struggle later, he was at last confident that he, O'Neill, was paramount, and was able to focus slightly more on his surroundings. Eyes still closed, he opened his senses up wide, and began to absorb the sounds and smells...

Wind blowing in grass. The lowing of an un-milked cow, far away. Birdsong, pure and sweet and liquid. The crackle of a small fire, and the sound of a metal...lid?... yes, lid, being bounced against the pot as the contents simmered. It occurred to him to wonder, at this point, how extremely detailed the sound palette was, and for a moment he speculated that this body had ears like a bat. Seconds later though, the absence of pervasive white noise assaulted him, hit him like a physical blow - no low humming noise from the fridge, no whine almost off the edge of audible from a TV on standby, no low growl from far off traffic. There was no background electrical noise at all; the silence was absolute, with the wind, cow, bird only serving to emphasise the absence.

His heart rate speeding up again, he resolutely refused to open his eyes, waiting out the panicky beats as his mind tried to make sense of it all. After all, such silence wasn't unknown to him. He had been on any number of pre-industrial worlds. The difference here was that he knew, with a bone deep certainty, that this was Earth. This was home.

Smell. Scent. Predominant was the tangy whiff of a stew of some sort, making his mouth water profusely and his tummy cramp in hunger. Under that was the smell of earth, all around, and a smell, remembered faintly from a long ago grandmother's house, of what he thought might be beeswax. The air was cool, the fire too small to heat up what was, he thought, a small space...

Preliminary check completed, General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

He was in what could only be described as a dugout, with solid earthen walls and a pressed earth floor. A window cut into the front wall gave in one shaft of light, which illuminated the interior, lighting the gloom enough to allow him to make out the almost banked fire, a table and two chairs, a small, hand carved bookshelf, some bowls and a plate or two. A little niche in the wall held a pair of pottery children, in Delft blue, he thought. Everything was neat and clean, despite being essentially in a mud surround.

Jack shifted, trying to look behind him, and winced, gasping involuntarily. He'd been aware of the ache in his shoulder in a peripheral way; by moving he had jolted it and brought it into sharp, painful focus. Eyes shut again, he attempted to slow his breathing.

There was the soft sound of a reed door opening, and the swish of cloth against the floor. A breeze brought the scent of wild grass to him, and a second later he felt cool fingers against his forehead, a palm held against the pulse in his neck. A woman's palm; she smelt faintly of clean sweat and woodsmoke, and there was a scent on her fingers, a slightly acrid whiff, that he couldn't identify. She probed cautiously at the dressing on his wounded shoulder and his eyes opened, air escaping his lungs with an involuntary hiss which startled the woman before him, although not nearly as much as he himself was startled.

"Doc!" Janet Frasier was there in front of him, as large as life... wait. His mind convulsed; the one thing Doc Frasier had never been was large. This woman was tall, as tall as Carter. Her greying hair was a dark blond and the tired face was nothing like Janet's. Her quizzical expression sat on a face he'd never seen before in his life. Yet he knew now, without a doubt, that the body of the woman in front of him housed that familiar, much missed spirit, and he felt suddenly safe, and at peace.

"The wound is healing." Mevrouw Jansen was gently pressing the path the musket ball had taken, checking for infection. Jack was steeling himself against wincing, but couldn't hide the occasional sharp intake of breath. To this she was sympathetic, instantly stilling her fingers until the pain had eased.

"There is no exuding," he took this to mean no pus, "and the edges are knitting together well." She sounded satisfied, and picked up a fresh dressing, which she soaked in a solution warming at the edge of the cooking fire. Pressing out the excess liquid, she placed the pad over the wound, securing it in place with a loose bandage. Earlier she had explained that this was honey-based, to cleanse the wound; after some minutes it would be removed and a dry dressing affixed in its place.

Job done, she moved around the little home, checking the milk in the jug was still cool in its dark spot by the back wall, stirring the remnants of the stew (squirrel, he had learned, and as delicious as he ever remembered anything tasting), sweeping a few stray strands of grass back out the door, and shooing out an errant chicken, which had wondered in from outside, with a firm "Out! Out!"

"Mevrouw Jansen." His voice was gruff, and he cleared his throat. He hadn't spoken again, after his surprised cry upon first seeing her, merely nodding when she introduced herself, and touching her hand in thanks for the stew. He hadn't trusted himself to speak before now.

She glanced up at the sound of his voice, and set her broom aside. Coming swiftly over to him, she laid a hand on his brow and bent over him worriedly.

"What is it? Have you pain?" Her voice was only slightly accented; it was her usage which betrayed her Dutch heritage. He gazed up at her, unable to speak for a minute. He could no longer see Doc Frasier's face overlaying hers, but her soul was easy to discern. It shone from her eyes.

He shook his head and tried his voice again. "I'm a little thirsty." It cracked, and she immediately passed him a trencher of water, which he drained gratefully. Hearing another man's voice coming out of what felt like his lips had unsettled him deeply. Memories of Goa'uld symbiotes, of how it felt to be blended, arose unbidden in his mind, and for a moment he was fearful that this was what had happened, the meeting on the astral plane merely an elaborate deception by a mind unable to face the truth of its own subjugation.

Only for a moment, though. This felt nothing like his experience with the Tok'ra Kanan, and, now that the first panic had subsided, there was no sense that he would lose who he was if he chose to recess his consciousness and let the stranger in whose body he was residing take over. Indeed, stranger was a relative term. Already he was feeling a familiarity inside this body, a sense of old haunts revisited, he noticed, faintly amused. If it hadn't been for the deep ache in his shoulder and the concerned eyes of the woman in front of him, he might even have chuckled.

"It is better?" He answered her query with a nod, and she smiled at him. "Good. It is good to see you awake and talking. When you were brought here, you lay as one dead, and I was scared you _would_ die." She glanced briefly away, her eyes falling on the second chair, and her expression sad. "Many men have done so."

"Your husband?" he guessed, and she nodded and sighed. "It is the war," she said, matter-of-factly. "I do not see why it must be fought, but what should I know?" Her tone was tinged with bitterness. "I am only a woman - my only task is to patch up those they bring me." She shook her head, marvelling at the intransigence of the male species.

"You, however, I think will live, Sergeant Hicks." A smile graced her face, lighting it immensely, and Jack found himself smiling back.

 _Sergeant Hicks... a name, at least. Civil War, I'm almost certain. Which side?_ He thought to glance down at himself, saw the greyish blue uniform. _Ah, Confederate._ He spared a moment to wonder at the whole experience. His nurse was still musing as she dug in a bag for dressings.

"And when I have made you well, you will go out again, and get shot again, and maybe not be so lucky that time."

She located the material she wanted and sat at the table, taking advantage of the light to rip it into even, bandage sized lengths. Her hands were steady, but her mouth was set. Jack, lost in speculation, wondering at what point in the war they were at, was taken by surprise when his mouth opened, and Sergeant Hicks spoke.

"Ma'm." The tone was apologetic. "I too grow infinitely tired of this war." Hicks cleared his throat. "I no longer know the rights and wrongs of the cause the way I did at the start. I am no longer certain I believe what I was told, that my _way of life_ is threatened."

The man's voice was exhausted. Jack, listening and watching in fascination, realised that although he felt in no way diminished or coerced, he was no longer the dominant personality in this body.

Hicks, obviously at the end of his tether, was rambling on. "I fight so that gentlemen may own slaves to work their land. I own no slaves, nor am I ever likely to. I am told they do not like their lot - why am I fighting to keep them in it?" He shook his head, and Jack, an unfelt observer inside his head, felt the man's uncertainty and his bone deep weariness.

"I speak like a traitor." Hicks was half whispering, the pain in his head surging. "Please, put it down to loss of blood. I beg of you not to report me."

Mevrouw Jansen had risen, and was fetching a small pot from the edge of the fire. She held it to his lips, and he gulped the bitter liquid gladly, ignoring the heat on his tongue. _Willowbark tea_ , his mind supplied, anticipating the easing of the headache soon. The mevrouw allowed him to drain the cup, then fetched a package from the small cupboard above the mantel and started setting more to steep.

"Sergeant Hicks," her voice was low and kind. "You are far behind your lines here, in Yankee territory. There is no-one for me to report you to, even if I wished it."

Those cool hands were on his brow again, and she was speaking softly.

"I think, if one must fight, it is better to fight for freedom than for slavery. I rail against the war - it cost me my husband - but some battles need to be fought, and won." She heaved a deep sigh, and her eyes closed. "Men have a right to be free."

Her weary voice carried the ring of utter conviction, and, deep inside his head, Jack felt Hicks' brain click over. His half formed notions, never fully examined in the context in which he lived, were suddenly concrete in his head, thanks to this tired, wonderful widow. Men ( _and women -_ that was 21st century Jack _)_ have a right to be free. It was so simple, and so right.

So simple, Jack thought, that he'd never questioned it. It was a central tenet of his life, so much a part of his belief system that it seemed odd to him that his soul had ever had to _learn_ it. Yet, undoubtedly, that was what had happened. He began to understand the avatar's words - that he was reliving these snippets of his past lives in order to ensure he woke up as _himself._

The room was tilting slightly on its axis, the headache was easing. Sergeant Hicks closed his eyes, and slept.

**Chapter 4:  
**

The mood around the Jaffa Council Table was sombre. The rudely disrupted gala event had been planned to commemorate five years of freedom for the Jaffa Nation, and to celebrate the hard won unity of the once disparate Jaffa sects. This ideal had been shattered, painfully, by the attack, masterminded and carried out, it seemed, from within their own ranks. Despite the evidence gathered by Daniel and Vala on Watlu, some of the council members were arguing that it was a set up, that external forces intolerant of the Jaffa Nation had planned and carried out the attacks... but their voices were few, and carried that desperate edge which suggests clutching at straws.

Master Bra'tac, flanked by Teal'c and Cameron Mitchell, was grim-faced. As the clamour built up around them, argument and counter-argument being voiced with increasing vigour and volume, he closed his eyes and shook his head. Seeing this, Teal'c slammed his staff into the ground, twice, and thundered "BE QUIET!" into the melee. In the ensuing pause, the bickering council members shocked momentarily into silence, he grated out "Master Bra'tac wishes to be heard, as do I."

There were a few rebellious murmurs, but the multitude began shifting. Sooner than Cam would have imagined possible, the great council chamber was filled with seated ranks of Jaffa, and only a gentle sussuration lifted and fell amongst them. Bra'tac waited until even this faded away, and then rose to speak.

"Brothers." His voice was sorrowful. "Five years ago we won freedom from the domination of false gods. Through great courage and determination, we forged a free nation out of a people born into slavery, and with the help of our Taur'i allies, we came together as free men and women, able to hold our heads high and stand amongst the other inhabitants of this galaxy as equals."

Now his head dropped, and his voice faltered. When he lifted his eyes to them all again, there were tears, unshed, glistening in them.

"It was the greatest desire of my life, and to see it fulfilled was the culmination of my life's work." Again, a pause, and Teal'c watched, concerned, as his hands shook and he fought for control. After some seconds he gained mastery of himself, and the faltering tone left his voice.

"The fact that some of our brothers have seen fit to desecrate this achievement, to, to _spit_ on the sacrifice made by so many," he took a deep, shaky breath, "cuts me to my heart," hand on chest, "my very heart. One of our greatest allies, a man I consider a brother-in-arms, lies close to death, his wife badly injured beside him. If he should die, die at the hands of the Jaffa, I too shall feel my heart's blood bleeding away. I too, shall be as one _destroyed_ by this terrible act of treason." He held out a hand to his audience.

"I beg you, brothers, let us root out this evil _now_ , and heal the wounds in our brotherhood, before further acts are committed which make it impossible for us to ever go back to the unity we fought so hard to achieve."

He reached for his glass of water, drained it, and sat down, head bowed. Silence reigned in the chamber. Had to hand it to the old man, Cam thought admiringly, he could turn on the rhetoric with the best of them. Let's hope it had the desired effect...

Teal'c had spoken only briefly. His face set, he had asked anyone with information which might relate to the plotters to come forward. He undertook to provide protection, if it were needed, to the best of his ability, but reminded the council members that each of them had a responsibility towards the Nation, to keep it whole.

Now it was evening, and the meeting was breaking up. Through force of long habit, the council members pitched their tents on the plains surrounding the new council buildings, and now, half an hour after recess had been called, campfires were burning and the smells of cooking filled the air. Cameron and Teal'c had joined Bra'tac at his tent; sipping the fruity drink so enjoyed by the Jaffa, they were reflecting on the day's discussions.

Cam had been giving Bra'tac a potted history of Earth's terrorist organisations and their activities. It was not a particularly pleasant topic, and the three men were feeling rather disheartened.

"Master Bra'tac." The newcomer had materialised soundlessly beside the tent. Teal'c started and reached for his weapon, but Bra'tac's hand on his arm stopped him.

"Be still, Teal'c - I know this man." He nodded courteously at the incomer, and shifted to make room for him at the fire. "Good eve, Tua'ron - how goes it?"

Tua'ron was a tall Jaffa, with a ropey strength not fully hidden by his robes. His grey beard placed his age as being close to Bra'tac's, and his face was troubled.

"As well as it might." He nodded unsmiling to Teal'c and Colonel Mitchell, and accepted a tin mug of the ta'cha, left brewing on the outer coals.

"Master Bra'tac, Teal'c." Tua'ron's voice was deep but soft, and Cameron had to strain to hear him from across the fire. The man clearly had something on his mind.

Bra'tac obviously agreed. After a short pause, he leaned across and laid his hand on the man's arm, waiting until the dark, worried eyes were directed at him.

"Speak, Tau'ron. You are among friends here." He indicated Teal'c and Cameron with a turn of his head. "And I do not believe you came over to my tent merely to drink ta'cha with us."

Tau'ron snorted, and raised his mug in a mock salute. "It is good ta'cha, Bra'tac. Perhaps you do your hospitality a disservice." He lapsed back into gloom. "However, you are correct. There is a thing I need to say to you." Again, a pause. It was Teal'c, growing impatient, who broke it.

"Speak." His voice brooked no argument, and the other Jaffa glanced his way before looking down again and beginning his tale.

"I have been speaking to a young warrior from my home village." Tua'ron's face was troubled. "He does not wish to withhold information, but, forgive me, neither he nor I have complete confidence in your ability to protect him should word of his betrayal leak out."

"His betrayal?" Teal'c's voice was icy cold. Tua'ron eyed him warily.

"Yes, but not what you are thinking. He has not betrayed the council, or the Nation. He came to me tonight to tell me he had been approached, some time ago, by a secret splinter group dissatisfied with our choice of allies and direction."

A coal fell in the fire, creating a shower of sparks and obscuring Cameron's one-eyed view of the three Jaffa sitting across from him. Tua'ron was still talking.

"This group, it seems, feels that the Jaffa could be using their expertise to gain more territory, more worlds, for themselves."

He cleared his throat, and took a deep gulp of his ta'cha. Teal'c, Mitchell and Bra'tac sat as still as stone. Not a muscle around the fire twitched. Tua'ron continued.

"They spoke to him of announcing their presence with an event which would terminate the ties between the Jaffa and the Taur'i, and allow the more aggressive amongst our brethren to begin their march towards power." He paused, looking down into the dying flames.

Cam cleared his throat. "Sounds vaguely familiar," he remarked dryly, poking an errant coal back into place with his foot. "Seems some of the servants still share the desires of the old masters, hmm?" There was a low, growling rumble from Teal'c.

"They misjudged their man, though." Tua'ron set his mug down, and met Mitchell's eyes squarely. "He said nothing until now, true, but he did not join them. He thought it would come to naught, and is deeply troubled by the thought that he could in some way have prevented this attack."

Teal'c made a sound indicative of extreme disbelief. "He should have reported them immediately! Why has he waited until now?"

Tua'ron paused before answering, his face twisting as he indicated the encampment around them.

"Safety in numbers, brother. He was threatened with death should he reveal he had been approached. He has a family, Teal'c, and he believed, until last week, that it was all merely posturing." He shrugged his shoulders, looking tired.

"Whatever his reasons were, he is trying to make up for it now. He has no names to give me, as none were exchanged, but he has given me the details of the planet and village where they were due to meet." Leaning forward, and presenting his back to the rest of the camp, he carefully passed Bra'tac a slip of paper, keeping his movements small and unobtrusive. "Perhaps you will be able to pick up their trail from this."

In one smooth gesture, he rose and bowed.

"Good eve, Master Bra'tac, Teal'c, Colonel Mitchell. My sincerest wishes for a full recovery are extended to General O'Neill, and his wife."

With that he was gone, blending seamlessly into the night, leaving the three of them to look silently at each other, faces grim. This was the information they had hoped to find: now the investigation could begin in earnest.

**Chapter 5: Chapter 5**

He had gone to sleep warm and protected, fed and reassured. The wound he had sustained was healing, and the extreme anxiety that had beset Sergeant Hicks had been relieved by the talk with Doc Frasier, or rather, he reminded himself, with Mevrouw Jansen.

Now, as he rose towards wakefulness, none of that seemed to be the case any more. His arm was aching again, a bone deep ache, but more worryingly, he couldn't feel his legs. Nothing, in fact, below about mid-chest. This was never, Jack thought dryly, a Good Thing. The fact that he was cold, cold to his core, told him nothing about his present location; the cold could be due to the injury which had left him paralysed.

The steady pitter-patter of raindrops on his face and on the helmet he wore, the trickle of icy cold water down his neck and the sensation that two pools of water had formed in his eye sockets reinforced the certainty that he wasn't in Mevrouw Jansen's cosy dugout any more. A tuneless humming, interspersed with a distinctively masculine hiss/whistle, offered further confirmation.

General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

Once the water had run off enough for him to stop spluttering, and for his vision to clear, he got his first look at the man sprawled rather gracelessly beside him. Despite the injury and the cold, the instant jolt of recognition warmed him into gladness.

"Kawalsky!" Except, he realised with a mental frown, that wasn't the name that left his lips. He wasn't even sure what language he'd spoken in. _Whatever_ , his mind supplied, _just go with it._

His expostulation had the desired effect though; the man left off torturing his ears and looked down at him, chuckling.

"Gaius - so you're not dead yet then?" He clapped an arm down on his shoulder, (the same one that he had injured in the Civil War lifetime - this could get old) and Jack couldn't suppress a groan as the shockwave traveled through his bones, alerting all his pain sensors. Those above the chest, anyway.

The man who was not quite Kawalsky frowned. "Gods, sorry, man. I forgot about the shoulder wound - the other is so much more dramatic." He gestured towards Jack's legs, and resumed the whistling, obviously a man of few words.

Mevrouw Jansen had looked nothing like Dr Frasier, Jack reflected, but this man was astoundingly like the Kawalsky he had known. He could have been Charles's grizzled, harder, older brother. It was hard to picture Kawalsky in the get up this man was wearing though. It was mostly leather, a leather worn so long and so continuously that it fit the wearer like a carapace, shiny with age and supple despite the shell-like illusion.

He sniffed: his senses, once again, seemed preternaturally acute. The vivid smell of the man beside him assaulted nostrils not used to this intensity of scent. Hand-tanned leather, sweat, years and years worth of it, if he was any judge, old blood and various other bodily fluids he chose not to identify just now... Jack sank his consciousness back into the recess he'd found on his last trip, allowing the body he was in to take over, easing the effect of this environment on his senses.

He used the break to glance down at the body he was in, half afraid, but the injury was not very obvious. No gaping wounds, no intestines spilling over his thighs. No arteries pumping blood.

His lower body was twisted at an unnatural angle though, and his soldier's brain, honed in at least three lifetimes now, was already assessing the situation and diagnosing probable internal bleeding. Certainly, he could feel himself growing weaker. Great. He'd barely woken up in this life, and now he was leaving it, for pete's sake.

Glancing further round, squinting through the fast falling icy rain, he could see he lay, as suspected, on another battlefield. Dead men lay humped where they fell, spears through necks or chests. Some bore the marks of being hacked at by swords. There were horses too; one lay close by, eyes open, lips drawn back from yellow teeth, nostrils still flared, even in death. He shuddered.

Cavalry then... Roman era if he were reading the signs right, and he'd fallen from his horse. Explained the broken back all right, but not why his fellow soldier was sat beside him. He wasn't getting out of this one; the man should flee.

"You should go." His voice was gruff, gritty and dry. Kawalsky (as he had to think of him) immediately bent over him, producing a leather water bag and holding it to his mouth. The liquid, brackish though it was, felt like a benediction, cooling his burning throat. The loss of that sensation, as it passed the midpoint of his chest en route to his stomach, was deeply disturbing, and for a few seconds he fought an overwhelming panic. Another mouthful of water was dribbled into him, he swallowed reflexively, and the man took the bag away, obviously satisfied. Waking up wounded and dehydrated was becoming a nasty habit, Jack reflected wryly. He tried his voice again.

"You must flee. They will take you for a prisoner." His voice was strangely accented to his own ears, flat and foreign. His companion shifted.

"Those savages? They're not coming back - they think we're all dead." He hawked a gob of phelgm from the back of his throat and spat it into the patch of rough grasses beside him. "An ambush... we didn't give them the credit for being clever enough to think of that." His laughter was without humour, an angry, barking sound.

He looked down and shrugged, meeting Jack's eyes. "Besides, I'm injured too. Need some time to rest before I attempt to take the news to the camp." His expression was bleak, and Jack felt a corresponding grimace cross his own face. Roman generals were generally unkind towards messengers bearing bad news.

They remained in a gloomy but companionable silence for a further few minutes. The rain eased off slightly, but the wind picked up, a 'lazy wind', Jack thought, remembering briefly his Irish great-grandmother, whom he'd known as a very young boy. _"It's a lazy wind, boyo, can't be bothered to go round you, just goes straight through you."_ He can picture her face as clearly as if she stood before him, although he hasn't thought of her in years. It strikes him as grimly amusing that he should be reminded of her now, some 2000 years before her birth. Must be something to do with being close to death.

He heard a sigh from beside him, and 'Kawalsky' looked down at him again. There was a flicker of resigned amusement in his eyes.

"Our mothers predicted we'd come to a bad end, hmm? All those times we raided the olive groves before harvest time."

He chuckled in dreamy reminiscence, and Jack found he could taste the rich juiciness on his tongue, made even more delicious by virtue of being so completely forbidden. His mouth was watering unbidden; this was a good memory for this body.

"Still, my mother would never forgive me if I made it back to Mother Rome, by some miracle, and told her I'd left you to die alone in this godsforsaken place, with its hellish climate." Kawalsky snorted, then winced.

Jack wondered vaguely where his injury was, but a feeling of floating away had taken hold of his head, and he was sure anyway that there was nothing he could do.

"You wouldn't want my own mother to be responsible for murdering me," Kawalsky was speaking again, "so rest assured, I'm here till the end." His voice was steady, but his face was sad.

"I don't leave my people behind to die alone, Gaius. And as for these mad Celts, well, I'll take my chances." His gaze returned to his feet.

Jack, on the edge of death, felt oddly close to tears, deeply touched and vividly reminded of another time, another life, where he'd reassured Kawalsky he'd stay with him, no matter what... "Thank you." He couldn't manage to say more.

"Ah, think nothing of it." The man had retreated into brusqueness. He picked up a piece of rock, rolling it between his fingers, then hurled it away. Jack heard the wet thump as it hit dead flesh; Kawalsky wrinkled his nose.

"So much death. Urgh, I grow tired of it." He shifted his position, hissing slightly in pain, and took a drink from the water bag. "Still, who knows, Gaius - if these Christians so troubling Rome have any truth in their claims, perhaps soon you'll see my sister again."

Jack's mind immediately found the image in his head - beautiful, dark, lilting and laughing. He'd loved this girl, loved her deeply, and lost her. The grief felt new.

"If you do, tell her I miss her too."

The voice, with its yearning tone, sounded suddenly much further away, and Jack realised his vision was fading, growing misty, blackness creeping in from the edges as the field around him faded. To his surprise he felt no fear, and he acknowledged that this was due largely to the presence beside him, waiting with him. He hadn't been left behind. He wasn't alone.

The darkness claimed him.

**Chapter 6:  
**

**SGC Infirmary**

"What will I do if he doesn't wake up?"

The question was asked in a small voice, very unlike Samantha Carter's (or rather, he reminded himself, Colonel Carter-O'Neill's), usual tone. Gone was the confidence, the eagerness that he so associated with her. She was sitting next to Jack's bed, holding his hand. All the tubes and wires had been removed, and he was breathing on his own. He just wasn't waking up... and no-one could say why.

Sam, recovering from a concussion, spent most of her day here, working from a makeshift office set up in the infirmary. No-one begrudged her the space, although they had all tried, at various times, to get her to leave his bedside for an hour or two, to go upside for some fresh air, or to come to the commissary for coffee. So far, they had had no luck.

Teal'c had been sitting with her for an hour, keeping her company, as was his wont, for some of her vigil. At her question he glanced up sharply. It was the first time he'd heard her admit that there was a possibility O'Neill wouldn't come back to them.

He wasn't even sure she'd been talking to him, but he answered anyway.

"You'll grieve for him, Samantha, probably for a long, long time."

He drew a deep breath, unsure of whether he should continue or not, but her eyes were now on him, and he couldn't stop himself.

"And then you'll find solace with someone else, although you'll never forget O'Neill."

He closed his eyes for a moment, willing himself to stop talking, but to no avail. "You'll find, though, that you can be happy again. In a different way."

Her eyes had widened, and she swallowed, obviously taken aback.

"You sound as if you know all that for sure." Her voice was low, gruff with lack of sleep, and she rubbed tired, reddened eyes.

"How can you _know_ that, Teal'c? How can you know I wouldn't just...fall apart, or fade away...?" The sadness in her eyes was overwhelming. "He's been part of my life for so long, and we've had so little time actually together. Oh God, it's unfair!"

"It is."

He wasn't looking at her, but at O'Neill, and he couldn't help the tinge of bitterness that came into his voice. "Life is often terribly unfair, Samantha."

She was watching him now, puzzled, and as he slowly turned to face her, he saw the understanding dawning in her eyes, the realisation of why he'd said what he said. He held her gaze, a sad half smile on his face, till she closed her eyes and shook her head.

"On the Odyssey." She was whispering now, eyes still closed. "I had lost Jack then, yet I still lived for fifty years without him."

Suddenly the blue eyes were open and fixed on him, intent and acute. "How long, Teal'c? How long were we together?"

He began his standard _I cannot divulge anything about a now lost timeline_ speech, and she waved him quiet, impatiently.

"Just this once, Teal'c. Share some of the burden. Tell me."

"Forty years" he said simply, and his face crumpled. Horrified by the sight, Sam reached out both hands, catching his, and they sat frozen for silent seconds, while Teal'c fought for, and regained, control. Eventually, with a deep sigh, he lifted one of her hands to his lips, and placed a gentle kiss against her fingers.

"I must leave - we are scheduled to set off for the world Tua'ron told us of tomorrow, and there is much still to do." He rose, and made his way to the door, turning around just before he exited. Sam still sat frozen.

"I hope, and I believe, that O'Neill will recover, and will return to you, Samantha." His voice was soft. "But if this is the time for you to part, then I _know_ you will live on. It is what he would want, and I have seen you do it." The sad smile crossed his lips again, and was gone "In another time, and in another place."

She stirred, and turned her eyes to him again. "I, Teal'c, I" her hands rose, showing her exasperation with her inability to find the words she wanted. Eventually she settled for a quiet "Thank you. For this. And, and... for then."

Their gazes remained locked for a few further seconds. Then Teal'c bowed his head, and was gone, and Sam resumed her position, holding Jack's hand pressed to her lips. As the shock wore off, a ghost of a chuckle escaped her, and she spoke quietly round his fingers. "Can opened, worms... everywhere! Come on Jack, wake up! Teal'c may be right - but I'm _damned_ if I'm going to do without you so soon. Wake _up!"_

But he slumbered on.

**The following morning**

It felt almost like old times, Cam thought, as he pulled on his field trousers and buttoned up his green BDU shirt. Like SG-1 was setting off to find info on the Ori, or to visit a world where a Prior had been... He would give anything not to have General O'Neill lying between life and death in the infirmary, of course, but he had to admit he sometimes missed this part. The meet and greets they filled their time with these days were all very well, but setting off to find a Big Bad certainly added a bit of spice to the whole thing.

"Hey, Jackson?" He'd finished with the buttons and was starting on his boots. Daniel's head appeared round his own locker.

"Hmm?"

"Heard just now that our space pirate's not joining us. What's she done to get herself bumped off this one?" He pulled his laces tight and stood up, bouncing slightly, stamping each foot in turn into place.

"Oh" Daniel was still rummaging in his locker. "She invited Sam out for coffee and a pedicure." He located his notebook, and snagged it with a satisfied 'ah!'

Cam's eyebrows did a Teal'c. "Huh? Hardly seems a crime worthy of disciplinary action."

Daniel wasn't concentrating on the conversation; he was checking his pockets and muttering inventory under his breath.

"What? Oh, no, not discipline. Sam said yes."

"Whoa." Cameron was truly impressed. It had been a full week now since Carter had left Jack's room, other than to use the loo and shower facilities. "Hey, what's Vala got that we haven't? I've tried everything short of bodily dragging her out of there."

Daniel, satisfied that he had all the kit he needed, turned his full attention to his team mate. "Well, Vala's been trying too, unsuccessfully till now. She said that Sam had been talking to Teal'c, and when Vala mentioned the coffee idea, she just said that she could use a bit of light hearted girly chat and would meet Vala outside the Mountain in the morning."

He began heading for the door. "Anyway, Vala said she wasn't going to miss the chance of getting Sam into the fresh air, and Landry agreed with her. So the girls are going to get pampered for the morning, while we go off and play detectives."

"Fair dues." Cameron, now eyepatch free, gathered up his rucksack. "Wonder what Teal'c said that persuaded Sam she needed to start living again a little?"

"No idea." Daniel was losing interest in the conversation. "He's been shut up in his quarters since last night. We'll bash on his door as we go past."

Once they'd stepped through the Stargate, and found themselves on the other side, they were pleasantly surprised. There had been an expectation that this would be a seedy little world, like Watlu, where Daniel and Vala had had confirmation that this was indeed a Jaffa group they were dealing with. Altran, by contrast, was a prosperous looking place, with farmlands stretching as far as the eye could see, and well maintained farmhouses dotting the landscape.

It had obviously been settled for many generations, and trade was evidently robust. Many of the fields were being ploughed by mechanical contrivances, which although looking nothing like Earth machinery, were doing the job effectively. Horses had not been completely replaced, and the smaller fields often contained at least a couple. This appeared to be crop farming territory, as Daniel could see no sign of livestock.

"Anyone see a possible meeting place?" Cam had scanned the area too, and was feeling doubtful about the information they had received. It looked a most unlikely world to plot treason on, to him. Teal'c, however, pointed silently at a small knot of buildings about half a mile away.

"There is no doubt a public house of some sort there, Colonel Mitchell. The MALP registered activity in that direction when it was sent through earlier."

"Looks pretty quiet now," Cam commented, then, looking round, "of course, it's working hours. Everyone who can is probably involved in getting ready for planting."

"Well, sun's dipping fast." Daniel consulted his handheld. "Sunset is apparently about an hour from now - if we quick march we can get the best seats before the hordes arrive."

Without a word, Teal'c hefted his bag and set off in the direction of the village. Cam and Daniel exchanged a puzzled look, and set off after him, struggling slightly to keep up with the pace he set. Once they were alongside, Cam jerked his head towards Teal'c, and nodded at Daniel, then peeled off to 'look at that plant over there, looks almost like corn...'

Daniel and Teal'c soon opened up a gap.

"So, Teal'c." Daniel stopped, unsure of how to continue. "Er, everything ok?"

For a moment there was no reply, and Daniel wondered if he'd overstepped the mark, somehow. Then Teal'c sighed, and slowed down, and looked back at him.

"Everything is not ok, Daniel Jackson. The man I regard as a brother is lying in a sleep from which he may never wake. His wife is facing up to the possibility of a life without him." His gaze fell for a second, then he looked back up. "And I am investigating my own kind, to find out why this should be so, and to try and prevent it happening again."

He shook his head. "It has not been a good week, Daniel Jackson."

They had come to a complete standstill, and now Teal'c looked back.

"We had better wait for Colonel Mitchell to catch up. He is loitering next to that field waiting until you have found out what it is that is troubling me." He raised his arm and waved once, catching Cameron's attention. Cam immediately started jogging towards them.

"That transparent, hey?" Daniel wondered if he'd had the full story of Teal'c's black mood. Although there were some things you just didn't press. "It has been a pretty damn miserable week, I'll agree with that." Then, as Cam caught up with them, "Lets go find some Jaffa ass to kick!" He set off with renewed vigour towards the village. Cam and Teal'c were left in his wake, looking at each other with identically raised brows.

The pub was rather jolly, filled within the hour by bucolic types with red cheeks and homespun clothing. The occasional pink cheeked woman was visible in the throng, and all in all it was a predominantly farming crowd. Cam, trying to make his way back to their table with three glasses of the local ale held high above his head, felt somewhat out of place.

Reaching the table he passed the drinks around; they had been joined by a young farmer who accepted his ale with a beaming face. Teal'c, as per usual, was still nursing his fruit juice.

It was hard to hear above the roar, but by dint of placing Teal'c and himself with their backs to the crowd, Cam was able to cut the noise down a bit. Their companion was telling Daniel about a group of Jaffa who had been in the pub for a meeting some weeks ago.

"Not very sociable," he was saying, disapprovingly. "After all, we have a few Jaffa families living here now. We're one big community. But you'd think we all had a nasty disease the way this lot carried on." He sniffed, disapprovingly, and took a big draught of his ale. "Ah, that's good! Well, as I was telling Dr Jackson here," he inclined his head, and his glass, towards Daniel, who leaned back just in time to avoid a hefty slop, "they were some sort of society. They tried to recruit a few of the young Jaffa men from around here, but only one even gave them the time of day." He snorted. "Then his father came and fetched him out the pub, and dragged him home by his ear." His face indicated how amusing this had been. "Young Jaffa can be reckless, you know" he confided, loudly, to Daniel. Teal'c's face became even more impassive.

"Gartin," Daniel struggled to be heard over the increasingly merry roar. "GAARTIN... ah, that's better. Tell me, where does this Jaffa family live? No, where do they LIVE? We need to SPEAK WITH THEM... oh bugger, this is impossible..."

Teal'c leaned forward, and put his mouth close to the now almost completely inebriated Gartin's ear. "Direct us to them. Now."

"Better than strong coffee and Alka-Seltzer," Daniel murmured, as Gartin rather nervously pointed out the route to the Jaffa farm. "A large angry Jaffa warrior bellowing in your ear - very sobering."

"Indeed." Cam watched as Teal'c inclined his head courteously, and Gartin scurried back inside. "Let's go kick that ass you mentioned."

Some three hours later they were on their way back to the gate with yet another piece of paper in their possession. The young Jaffa who had been so unceremoniously removed from the meeting had still been there long enough to receive a folded note containing further details. As it was in code, he had been able to make neither head nor tail of it, and, surmised Daniel, the plotters must have felt that no-one else would be able to either. It was a bad mistake on their part. He was absolutely certain that he and Vala, working together, would be able to figure it out.

Time to get back to the SGC to try.

**Chapter 7: Chapter 7**

It felt a little bit like waking from a very deep sleep, Jack decided, this passage between lives. The type of sleep where Daniel's snoring echoing through the small tent weaved itself into your dreams as the noise of a car pulling up outside your spaceship, or Carter's attempts to wake you gently resulted in the dream morphing into one of those ones where you're not wearing anything and she's...

He decided not to go there. Too sad.

It was odd though. He remembered very clearly dying in a field in Roman Britain, seemingly just minutes ago, and yet here he was, making his way to consciousness again. "Ah, but whose?" his inner voice wisecracked. "That's the million dollar question..."

Fully awake now, he kept his eyes closed while he assessed his surroundings. The air around him was cool, but with no discernable breeze and no scent, save for perhaps a faint chemical tang. Air-conditioning, he decided, although he heard no whine or whirr from a machine. The space around him felt sterile, aseptic even. He was most definitely not outside this time round.

General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

"Well, we think it's a very relaxing room, but I'm glad to see you haven't actually fallen asleep." The voice was amused, and before he even turned around Jack had an inkling of whose face he was going to see briefly overlaying the one in front of him. As his head whipped up, it was all he could do not to shout "George!" and pump the man's arm vigorously up and down. As it was, he contented himself with a wide grin, drawing an answering smile from the face so unlike George Hammond's as to make it almost inconceivable that the same soul could have inhabited such disparate bodies.

This man was dark haired, with finely drawn features. He had startlingly green eyes, which stood out against a mocha coloured skin. He was small, slim, but obviously fit. Jack found it curiously hard to estimate his age. He was unlined, but gave the impression of not being a young man.

The room he stood in was...odd. Unusual. The walls held a slight curve, and there were regular slits set into them, although, Jack noticed, no windows. The walls gave the impression of being plastered and painted, but there was a faint shimmering feel to them which suggested something else was responsible for their appearance. The furniture was low slung and looked like a very comfortable mixture of chair and bed, and the lighting was gentle and luminous. It appeared to be ambient, with no visible sign of a fixture anywhere.

Jack's senses were telling him he was somewhere far in the future of his own life. The surroundings, the man who corresponded to no known race Jack had ever seen... it all added up. He couldn't help a small shiver - somehow being in a recognisable past had grounded him. Being able to identify the military uniforms and place the period had given him a sense of reassurance totally lacking here. He felt rudderless, ill at ease in this climate controlled room.

Then he glanced back at his host, and felt his tension dissipate. Despite his exotic appearance, the body of this man housed George Hammond's soul, and he could no longer be afraid. Besides, he wasn't lying grievously injured surrounded by the dead and dying. Sweet. He found himself speculating idly as to whether this incarnation was a past or a future one for George. He knew this lifetime lay in his soul's past, however it could lie in George's soul's future... His head began to ache.

The slim, dark haired man had been gazing through a recess in the wall while Jack held his internal discussion, oblivious to the growing gap in conversation. Now he looked over towards him, and extended his hand.

"Come. Be the first to see with me the new leg of our complex opened." Almost to himself, he added, "Such a complexity of engineering as it is, I thought we should never complete it. Still, a fitting climax to my career, I think. I shall enjoy my retirement." The last sentence was breathed out in a hopeful tone, and Jack was struck by the truth of the old adage - the more things change, the more they stay the same.

"Plus ca change..." he murmured, earning himself a curious look from his companion. He shook his head, smiling slightly, and his host smiled back, his face transformed from sober reflexion to warm amusement in a second. Perhaps, Jack, mused, he would get the retirement that General Hammond had longed for, and been denied by his faulty heart. Perhaps payback wasn't always a bitch...

Then he got his first glance through the deep-set recess in the wall, and couldn't hold back a gasp. For a second he fought back vertigo, and its concomitant nausea, but won, and was able to continue gazing out in dumbstruck wonder. He could feel his jaw hanging slackly, but was too enthralled to do anything about it.

They were suspended in the air, floating in what must, my God, be the edge of the stratosphere. No wonder the place was so climate controlled! Outside this deep slit in the wall he could see that the building was supported by transparent tubular, well, _pipes_ seemed to be the only word for them. Or skeins perhaps...Pulses of liquid light flowed through them, occasional nodules of a crystalline nature building up, and then bursting forward again, fluctuating between glorious pinks and golds to deep blue... If his host had not mentioned 'feat of engineering', he would have wondered if the skeins were alive.

Suddenly a big cluster of powder puff clouds floated past, obscuring the glories outside - they must be at 20 000 metres at least, Jack thought, marvelling at the unlikelihood of it all. The clouds parted again, and he looked further away. Again he found himself drawing a quick, awed, breath.

Airy, alluring, shimmering... not words he usually associated with architecture, but there it was. The edifice he could see, and presumably the one he himself was standing in, were unlike anything he had ever seen before. How had man created this? It was certainly unlike anything existing on Earth in his time. The closest equivalent he could come up with was the crystals used by the Tok'ra. In fact,

"Surely this must have its origins in Tok'ra technology?"

His host looked surprised, then nodded.

"Well, yes, of course. With certain modifications to allow its use this far above ground, and a self-perpetuating function... but son, you know this." His face became concerned.

"I'm glad you've managed to get this time off. You _are_ exhausted, just as your mother feared."

He put his hand on Jack's upper arm, squeezing slightly.

"Come and have a drink. The tower will still be there later." He led an unprotesting Jack from the room, his head still spluttering. _Son?_ Such was his astonishment that he nearly missed the mirror in the hallway, and thus his first glimpse at himself in a different body altogether. Coffee coloured skin, green eyes - yes, it was definitely a possibility he was related by blood to the man next to him. Son of a gun!

He reckoned it was time to recess himself into this body's head. He'd already slipped up once, and there was too much scope for error here. Somewhere along the way in this unusual journey he'd lost his fear of being hidden inside another's mind. He was just himself, viewing events from within, well, from within _himself_. Perfectly simple.

They had reached a sitting room, longer than it was wide, far more traditionally constructed, and beautifully appointed. One side was set up as a proper old fashioned study, with wood paneling visible on the bits of wall not covered by rows and rows of books. Jack wondered if they were real, and the proprietorial hand his ... father... ran over them as they passed gave him his answer. They were, and much loved too. He wondered how long it had taken to build up such a fantastic collection.

The conversation was going on without him; Jack was peripherally aware of the younger man's voice explaining wearily that he _was_ very tired. The shuttle had been late and the negotiations fruitless... He spared a moment to think scornfully that this sounded like a very boring life, then he looked over to the other end of the long room, and was again struck by awe.

The entire end wall of the room had been converted to a picture window. Outside, an expanse of golden sand stretched down to the wind-tossed ocean, which crashed against the strand, great breakers sending foam spraying high into the air. Jack could almost smell the salt, and he wondered why the window wasn't open, to let in the cold, briny air. Then his faculties caught up to his senses, and he did a double take, leaping willy-nilly out of his recess and back to the forefront of this mind.

"Hang on a cotton-pickin' minute! We're 20 000 metres in the air! How can there be a _beach_ outside the house?"

He noted the puzzled look on the other man's face, and swung his gaze back to the window, gesticulating to emphasise his meaning... only to stop dead. Where there had been a pristine stretch of prime coastline there were now mountains; green bases rising to snow capped peaks, wave upon wave of them filling the view with awesome splendour.

Jack groped his way to a seat, and collapsed into it. He gratefully accepted the glass pushed into his hand and gulped down a mouthful of excellent single malt, all the while watching in utter fascination as the view before him morphed seamlessly from the mountain vista to a panorama of what could only be the Serengeti. Wildebeest wheeled and galloped, giraffe nibbled lazily at tree tops, and giant thunderheads promised rain later. It was all so incredibly detailed! He felt sure that if he just shouldered his way through the glass, he'd be there, with the magnificent beasts before him.

He had completely forgotten he wasn't alone in the room, and started when he heard the voice next to him.

"It's the very latest in virtual imaging technology - I did message you that I was having it installed." His father's voice was mild, but he heard the question implicit in it, and shrugged, wordlessly, apologetically. The older man sighed, then said in a voice laced heavily with a barely concealed exasperation Jack remembered well from Hammond's tenure as commander of the SGC,

"Of course, with the hours you're expected to put in, it's a wonder you remember your _name,_ let alone news from a home you haven't seen in five years."

Exasperation had given way to mild reproach by the end of his sentence, and Jack felt the guilt buried deep in this body's mind. A moment, then both men lifted their glasses and sipped, and the tension broke.

His father gave a wry chuckle, and shook his head, leaning back into his armchair and watching Jack with deep affection. "It's probably my fault you work so hard. Heaven knows that was the example I set for so many years." He swirled his whisky around; the viscous golden liquid coated the sides of the glass and he inhaled the fumes with his eyes closed.

"The world had gone so much to hell - we were trying to salvage what we could from what was left but it was hard... the rising water levels wiped out so much, and the population just kept on growing." He was speaking quietly now, his eyes open but seeing the past, not the present.

"We wanted to build something new from the ashes." His voice was heavy with memories and regret, and he gestured to the marvellous 'window'.

"All these things, lost forever."

Jack, following the line of his gesture, saw with a little thump of his heart that the image there now was of a pond very like the one at his own cabin. A rickety wooden jetty jutted out into the water, dragonflies dipped and fluttered, sunlight glinted on small ripples. He was struck by an overwhelming wave of homesickness, intensified when a fish jumped after a fly, splashing back into the water and leaving ever increasing perfect circles radiating out over the pond's surface. God, he wanted to go home!

There was a sigh from the other chair, and looking over he was startled to see a mirrored longing in the dark, lean face opposite him. His father's expression was that of a man offered a glimpse of paradise, but one which he was never going to be allowed to experience. He was speaking again.

"I think this is my favourite. What I wouldn't give to be able to walk out through this vidscreen and onto that jetty... to sit for an afternoon and try to catch one of those fish. With an old fashioned rod - you've seen the pictures, of course."

Jack, firmly back in his recess, suddenly felt the longing rising. This incarnation of his soul dreamed of this, longed for it, but, like his father, couldn't have it. His own need for the peace and serenity of his cabin, the beauty of its surroundings took on new meaning for him. He'd learnt, oddly enough, to appreciate them _here_ , in this life, where they were no longer an option for people left on an over-populated, over-utilised, exhausted Earth.

He glanced at the man next to him and felt a wave of affection flow through him. His father had instilled this love of the great outdoors in him, despite the fact that it no longer existed. Allowing himself to be open to the memories and emotions inherent in this body, Jack remembered a childhood spent pouring over old books and pictures. Precious time spent with his father, learning of past glories... it had been what they did together, during the older man's rare time off. And here, in this glorious architectural triumph of engineering, his father's heart was still lost in the past...

His musings were broken by a giant yawn, and the older man turned away from the vidscreen, now showing a magnificent sunset over desert dunes.

"I'll get the supper your mother left out for us." A hand passed briefly over his hair, and he felt the love behind the gesture. "You rest - we can talk more later. I'm very glad you came home, son."

Jack wanted to stay awake, to talk more _now_ , but he couldn't. Weariness overcame him, and he slept.

**Chapter 8: Chapter 8**

**SGC**

"So that's the next planet then."

Daniel was studying the note he, Teal'c and Cam had brought back. The code had not been rudimentary but he had been correct; with Vala's help it had been broken within a couple of days. He had the feeling that these Jaffa were enjoying the cloak and dagger part of being a secret society without having much expertise at it. The note contained a lot of guff about brotherhood and secrecy... Vala had got bored hours ago and was working on a translation for Landry.

SG-1 had missed the meeting on Altran - the sooner they got to this new destination, the better. As long as they kept getting lucky with information regarding the assignations, they would eventually, Daniel hoped, come across the rebels actually holding a meeting. Oh damn. This wasn't going to be it. The last line of code held a date for the next meeting. Yesterday.

"So, which planet is it?" Vala had left her chair, and her translation, and was peering over the desk, trying to read the slip of paper upside down. Daniel blinked.

"Uh, Colfrinchan. They have a Stargate, but the meeting was yesterday, worse luck. Still, if we get there fast, we can hopefully find out where the next one will be, and disrupt it in progress." He began gathering up his papers, looking round for his rucksack. It occurred to him that Vala wasn't doing the same. Instead, she was looking at his translation with an odd expression on her face.

"Er, Vala? Get ready to go - we don't need military backup, I reckon. The dissidents have moved on. We can 'gate over and hopefully be back in less than a day."

Still she didn't move. Her finger reached out and tentatively touched the name of the planet.

"Colfrinchan was one of Que'tesh's planets." Her voice was low. "Ba'al gave it to her as a gift. It had strong trade links with my home world..." She pursed her lips. "I don't think I'm the right person to go with you, Daniel."

This was not convenient for Daniel - he needed at least one other person along, standard procedure.

"Come on, Vala, that's a long time ago. There's probably no-one left who remembers Que'tesh."

Stung, she glared at him. "It's less than ten years since she was there, Daniel! Just how old do you think I am? And I don't think it's a good idea." Her voice rose slightly on the last word, and checked his headlong rush. He paused, and regrouped his thoughts.

"Look, perhaps you're right, and it's not a great idea. But there's no-one else available - too many injured, and the other teams are all offworld. We need to do this, for Jack." He played his trump card. "And for Sam."

Her full lips trembled slightly, but he had her. She'd do anything for Sam.

"OK, for Sam then. But I still..."

"Yes, yes, I know. You don't think it's a good idea. I get that. Let's go!"

It didn't occur to him, as they waited for Walter to dial up the Gate, that he'd never seen her so subdued.

"Yes, there was a meeting here."

The officious little town clerk was strutting alongside him. "Jaffa, a fair number of them, yesterday morning. Why is this of interest to you?" Daniel couldn't work out if he was being curious or pedantic with the question.

"Well, we're trying to catch up with them, Neftun. They, uh, they're plotting against my organization, and we would prefer to meet face to face."

He cleared his throat. His ridiculous reason appeared to have passed muster - despite his question, Neftun appeared supremely disinterested in why he wanted the information he sought.

"Yes, yes, face to face... It is a pity you missed them, then."

They had almost reached the small market square, where the Stargate stood. He had left Vala on watch, telling her to keep out of sight, if possible. Neftun had shown no huge recognition of her when they had come through, although there had been some whispering amongst the small crowd at the market.

"You wouldn't happen to know where their next meeting will be?" Daniel wasn't hopeful - that would be just too easy. Still, it was worth a try. Neftun surprised him.

"Well, I have no name for you, but it may help you to know what they were saying as they dialled the Chappa'ai . They were talking idly, and they did not realise I was, ahem" he cleared his throat. "just behind the fountain, checking on the, the, the... anyway, one of them mentioned a 'blue planet' and said it was not far from here." He shut his mouth decisively.

Daniel felt his jaw drop. "Really? Well, that's incredibly good of you to tell me. I'd expected to have to trade for the information. Thank you..." he broke off, noticing Neftun's bemused look. "What?"

"I do not understand." Neftun swung an arm towards the market place. "What need would there be for you to trade further, when you have already delivered such a valuable prize to us?"

Daniel felt the blood start to drain from his head. "Valuable prize... oh gods." Leaving Neftun standing, he set off at a run, dashing down the little cobbled streets, hearing the bewildered "Dr Jackson..." echoing behind him, and not caring. He burst into the little square, breathing heavily, and immediately spotted them, a group of some eight men, crowding around Vala.

One of them was holding her hands behind her back, and pulling on her hair, exposing her throat. At some stage her BDU shirt had been ripped, and the regulation bra underneath pulled up. Another man, leering and panting into her face, was pawing at her exposed breasts, pinching so hard Daniel could see the marks blooming from where he stood. The others were cheering him on, and a third man began pushing in and fumbling with the belt of Vala's trousers. He heard her strangled wail, and the spell of horror he'd been under for precious seconds broke.

With an almost feral roar of rage he was across the square and pulling them off her. One man fell unconscious to the cobbles, another staggered backwards, clutching a badly broken jaw. The man holding her captive flung himself away, fell over and crawled off in terror; Daniel caught Vala as she crumpled. The rest fled in disarray, all bar one, who, with a stupid expression on his flat face, reached for her again.

"She's ours" he was panting. "S'our revenge. She escaped before..."

With one blow, splitting his knuckles and not noticing, Daniel knocked him senseless, sprawling him across the walkway to fetch up bonelessly slumped against the pretty ornamental fountain, nose pouring blood.

Turning to Vala, held in his other arm, he felt an even greater anger flood him. She was swaying, with a nasty gash at her hairline, and her eyes were so dilated with fear that the iris appeared almost all black. Her breath was coming in tiny gasps. Cursing, he began pressing the keys on the DHD. As the last chevron locked into place, he heard Neftun's voice, and, turning, saw the fat little man hurrying towards him.

"Dr Jackson! What is the meaning of this?" He was red faced with anger. "We gave you the information you seek, in exchange for the return of the false goddess. Why have you reneged on this arrangement?"

The kawoosh of the wormhole lit their faces in blue light, then the event horizon shimmered there, liquid blue. Daniel, fighting the urge to spit in Neftun's face, gathered Vala up like a child, resting her unresisting head on his shoulder. His voice, when he spoke, was low and extremely vehement.

"I. Do. Not. Trade. _People._ Ever. For _anything._ "

His eyes swept the square, and he felt bile rising in his throat. "And you can all, every bloody one of you, go to Hell."

With that he turned his back and strode through the Gate. The wormhole winked out, and Neftun was left opening and closing his prissy mouth, like a fish.

The private infirmary room was sparsely decorated, mostly in an utilitarian green. Still, the small nightlight illuminated only their upper bodies, and shut out the rest. Encased in a puddle of warm light, they sat, silent, Daniel beside the bed, Vala in it, her hands folded in front of her, fingers clasped. She had resisted all Daniel's attempts to hold them. Her eyes were equally firmly averted.

"Vala." His voice was low, and rough. He didn't bother trying to clear it. All his attention was focused on her. "Please, look at me."

She didn't change her position, but the fingers entwined on the covers began to shake. She frowned at them a moment, as if they were somehow not a part of her, then pushed them under a fold of blanket, out of sight. Daniel let his head fall forward onto his arms. It was 3am; he'd been here since midnight when her sedative had worn off, and he wasn't getting anywhere.

"I must apologise." Her voice shook only slightly, and his head shot up.

"What? Why? What can you possibly have to apologise for?" He was honestly confused, but she still wouldn't look at him.

"I've got so comfortable here," she swallowed, "that I've let myself slip. I don't train with Muscles nearly as much as I used to." There was a definite tremble in the voice now. "A couple of years ago they would never have been able to," sharp indrawn breath, " _overpower_ me like they did today. I'm sorry I couldn't fight harder, Daniel."

Now she did look at him, and the big grey eyes were so bleak, so haunted, that he felt tears start in his own, and fought an only partly successful battle to keep them from falling.

"I'm the one who's sorry."

He dropped his eyelids, felt the twin tears run down his cheeks, didn't try to stop them.

"I didn't listen to you; I used emotional blackmail to get you to come with me." Opening his eyes, he met hers with fierce honesty.

"I may never forgive myself for putting you in that position, Vala. And if I hadn't arrived back when I did..." he felt the bile rise again and swallowed hard, feeling the burn of reflux. "Oh God."

"Oh Daniel."

Her voice was eerily high. He'd never heard her sound like that before.

"It's nothing that hasn't happened before. At least this time you got there before, well, before." She stopped, unable to continue, and he watched her internal struggle, too horrified to speak.

"I must sleep - Dr Lam ordered me to rest."

She was trying to escape the conversation, but this time he was having none of it. He grabbed her hands, holding them tight, his thumbs over her pulse points picking up the rapid fluttering of her heart.

"Vala - not this time. Please, please, Vala, talk to me this time. I need to understand." She was shaking her head, and tears flew, shocking him even more. He couldn't remember ever seeing her cry. Even Adria's death...

"That man, the village idiot." The venom in his voice was clear. "He said you 'escaped last time'. " What did he mean?"

Perhaps it was the late hour, perhaps the events. Perhaps it was Daniel being so unlike his usual contained self. Whatever it was, Vala found she couldn't hide away any more. She'd never wanted to speak about this; now she couldn't help herself.

Daniel listened appalled as the tale poured out. How Que'tesh had taken a young virgin, engaged to be married, as host, and had delighted in using her for her own perverse desires. How she would select young men from worlds, such as Colfrinchan, use them for her pleasure, then lose interest in them. Some of these men Vala had grown up with...

The lucky ones were killed, the unlucky ones castrated for Que'tesh's amusement, and returned to their families as half-men. Then Que'tesh had been removed, and Vala left on her home world by the Tok'ra. Possibly they thought this was best for her. The trade links between her world and Colfrinchan were very close, however...

Some of the men on Colfrinchan today had been among the crowds when the men on her planet had taken their revenge. They'd thrown stones at her until she couldn't run anymore, and then...

Vala stopped, and wiped her face with her palms, like a child. "I can't, Daniel. I can't go on."

He sat as if frozen, his only movement the gentle rubbing of his thumb over her wrist. He'd never felt so sick in his life. And he'd thought Sha're had had the worse of the Goa'uld with Amunet...

'How many?" His voice sounded rusty to his own ears. Beside him, Vala reached for another tissue, and blew her nose again.

"Eight. Or ten. I lost count. They left me then, although they laughed at me and told me they would be back, with more men, in a few days." The tremors in her body were stilling, as she reached the end of her story.

"I don't know how I did it, but I got out of the enclosure they put me in, before they came back." Her eyes were far away, lost in the past. "I stole a communications device from a nearby house, and got a message to Jacek. He wasn't far away - a day later he picked me up."

She was leaning back against the pillow, quiescent now, the worst told. She seemed at peace - God, he wished he could be too.

"I'll live, Daniel. I always do."

Her eyelids were drooping; she was asleep.

He sat the rest of the night, holding her hands, staring at the green, green wall.

**Chapter 9: Chapter 9**

**Jack**

It was the noise which woke him up. A great clamour and shouting, the screams of women and a low chanting underscoring it all. The element of urgency was clear, and for a moment he lay still, confused. Then, still drugged with sleep, General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

There was a low light burning. Ah, a small oil lamp, set well out of reach on the nightstand. Next to him lay a leather bound book, with blank pages half filled in, the pen left lying carelessly across the page when the writer, presumably, fell asleep. His eye caught a paragraph at the top of the page...

_"July 1879:_

_It has been six months since Papa's cousins came to live on the estate next to ours, and I am still decided that I shall marry Stuart when I turn fifteen. I have three years to convince him that this is the right thing for us, and for the family. He still thinks of me as a little girl... I love him so much my heart aches with it sometimes. He is the most wonderful man I have ever met, and six years is, after all, not such a big gap in age."_

Huh? _What?_ Propelled by urgent curiosity, he swung his legs out of bed, and nearly tripped over the floor length garment he was wearing... _nightdress, it's a nightdress,_ his mind supplied, and he made it without stumbling to stand in front of the floor length mirror propped up against the wall. Oblivious to the room behind him, his eyes came to rest on his reflection, and the commotion and noise faded away to nothing, replaced by the pounding of his heart.

He was a _girl_. A young girl, no more than 12. He looked a bit like Cass had when they found her all alone on Hanka. Straight up and down, skinny, long hair braided down her back. She looked way too young to be writing in her diary about being _in love_ with anyone, thought Jack, slightly disapprovingly. That scared, white little face, looking back at him... It was the sight of the fear on the child's face that broke the spell, and suddenly the noise was back, louder and more raucous. He could smell fire too, and kerosene.

The girl in the mirror suddenly gathered up her nightdress and moved quickly to the door of the room. Jack, watching through her eyes, although she was totally unaware of his presence, realised he was getting much better at being a passenger inside someone else's head. Possibly this was due to it being, at some point, his own head. Gah. He hid in his recess, and tried to calm the pounding heart of this little body.

The girl was now at the top of a flight of stairs, which swept rather majestically down to the floor below. Heavily ornate drapes, colours washed out by the moonlight, were pulled back from the windows both on this floor and the one below; despite this the air hung heavy and still, the heat stifling. Trickles of sweat ran down the back of the girl's neck, and she lifted her thick plait, pulling it away from the skin, to try and cool down. It didn't make much difference. She smelt of fear, Jack thought, and wondered if she knew it.

"Ayah." The voice was tentative, barely audible over the ever increasing jangle outside. "Ayah!" There was an edge of desperation now, and still no-one came. Jack could feel her indecision, her uncertainty, and her desire to just dart back into the richly appointed room, with the hand carved rocking horse and dolls house, and pull the covers over her head until the danger _went away_.

Her breath was coming in short gasps; despite himself, Jack was fascinated to see what she would do. After all, he had been this child...

A particularly loud scream was followed by the smash of breaking glass, and the smell of kerosene grew stronger. With a little groan, the girl started down the staircase, clinging to the banister, step by step. Jack was lost in admiration; she was so scared she could barely think, yet she was going to see what was happening. Some kid!

The little girl was half way down the stairs now, and sank suddenly to her knees with a whimper of fear. Jack was jerked back from his musings into her reality - from behind her eyes he could see flickering flames through the big window, and far down the long, curving driveway, a mass of people advancing towards the house. Even at this distance it was possible to see the flames from their torches glinting off the kukris they carried. All sense of excitement vanished for Jack. This was serious, serious trouble.

" _Ayah"_ This time the cry was whispered, a tiny plea, but still no Ayah came. She had her nightdress bunched in her hands; Jack tasted blood as she chewed her lip, but she didn't stop, instead biting down harder. What the hell was this, and where the hell was he? The child was so terrified that all he could find in her mind was fear, and the need for her nurse. Where on earth were her parents?

Ah, the knowledge came to him. They were away for the evening, and she had been left in the care of the nurse. Part of the terror, a large part of it, was fear for her mother and father, trying to travel home in the melee. And now fear for Stuart and his family too, for that was his house she could see burning...

All of a sudden she seemed to reach a decision. Despite still shaking with fear, she stood up and, moving purposefully now, hastened down the remaining stairs. Across the hall was an imposing wooden door; she dashed towards it, but stumbled to a sudden halt, shaking her head.

"Too dangerous," Jack heard, whispered under her breath, and she turned and headed for the kitchen, down another, far less imposing, flight of stairs. Racing silently through the large, stone room, past a cold larder and a fireplace, banked for the night, she came to a smaller door, bolted firmly. Without hesitation she began pulling the bolts back, panting with the effort.

Jack was torn. A large part of him wanted to come out of hiding, wrestle control of this body and then march it straight back upstairs, lock the door of the bedroom and hide her in the wardrobe.

Another part of him was insisting that this was past, this had already happened, and that events would unfold in the way they were meant to... but that didn't make it any easier. The creeping sense of dread he felt was increasing exponentially. By the time she had unbolted the last lock, they were both damn near hyperventilating.

Pulling the door open, the girl paused, teetering on the doorstep. Jack, trapped inside her head, heard her say in a low voice which wobbled only slightly "Stiff upper lip, Cecily," and then she was out into the muggy night, brushing away the cloud of mosquitoes which instantly swarmed around her head, and heading for the front of the house, through flowerbeds and under scented trees.

Now that she was moving, her fear had subsided somewhat, and Jack, the unseen observer, felt his panic ease too. Obviously, he thought wryly, his recess was not as protected as he'd thought. Years spent cultivating military detachment weren't counting for much this time around.

They rounded a corner, and without warning, Cecily found herself caught up in the riot she had seen from the top of the stairs. A large, angry crowd of peasants, most armed with kukris but some carrying rifles, were advancing on the house. In the near distance, fires were burning, and Cecily gasped. With a sick feeling, Jack realised the estate just down the hill was fully aflame. Stuart's home. Small figures, black against the blaze, could be seen running back and forth, carrying various items out of the reach of the fire.

Cecily was being buffeted by the tall, turbanned figures, struggling to keep to her feet. From inside her head, Jack could hear her despairing voice calling "Mama! Papa? Ayah?" but he knew the sound would be lost in the commotion of the crowd. He'd placed where he was. This was somewhere in India.

Cecily's diary was dated 1879. India was under the rule of the British Raj and, if memory served, they hadn't been universally popular. . . It was only 20 years since the Indian Mutiny. Strange how clear the memory of the Military History classroom at the Academy was. It all came back to him, the wooden seats, the bulleted points on the blackboard in the lecturer's neat hand. It was a world away from the fiery, sweaty, terrifying reality he found himself in.

All of a sudden, Cecily was seized under the armpits, hauled roughly out of the crowd, and pulled through the trampled flowerbeds against the side of the house. She fought like a Trojan, he'd give her that, kicking and trying to scratch her attacker. A hand was placed, unnecessarily he thought, over her screaming mouth - she promptly sank her teeth into the palm.

"Ow!" Her attacker released her mouth, and she opened it to scream again.

"Cecily! It's me, it's me! Please be quiet! Be quiet, CeCe!"

The voice was low and urgent, and Cecily stopped dead, lifting tear stained, blurry eyes up to the man whom she had, until recently, been trying to maim.

"Stuart! Oh Stuart, Stuart." Weeping in relief, she flung herself at him, and he bundled her up and hugged her tight for a second.

"Cecily, what on earth are you doing out here? You should be inside - your Mama found your room empty and is out of her mind with worry."

He set her down again, but kept hold of her shoulders as they moved swiftly around the house, as if afraid she would dash back into the fray. His voice was strained with anxiety.

"Oh poor Mama! I'm so sorry, Stuart... I woke up, and Ayah was gone." The young man uttered an oath which he bit down on. Cecily rattled on, eager to explain herself.

"I wanted to find Mama and Papa, to warn them," her voice broke in a sob. "I didn't realise the crowd was moving that fast. I'm sorry, Stuart!"

They had reached a small verandah, and he lifted her up. The fires burning in his father's estate next door had flared up, and Cecily gasped.

"Stuart... your mother and father, your sisters...!"

"Shh." His face was turned away from her, towards the flames, and his tone was bleak. "They are safe. My father is here with yours. We'll be going out to try and talk to the rioters now, as soon as I see you safely inside. Mother and my sisters are safely away."

He turned back towards her, and the flames threw his face into sharp relief. Jack, seeing that face clearly for the first time, found himself gasping in shock, his consciousness reeling. Over the features of Cecily's first great love, as clearly as if she stood before him, he saw Carter, jaw tense, blue eyes glittering, hair set aglow by the inferno behind her.

Within milliseconds the impression had faded, but the turmoil it had thrown him into was terribly real. The young man before him, blond and blue eyed in his own right, housed Samantha Carter's soul, and he was seized with a sudden, terrifying premonition of doom.

Cecily seemed to share this; she gripped her cousin round the waist and begged him.

"No, no, Stuart, do not make me go in! Let me stay with you!"

"Cece." His voice was weary, resigned, and yes, loving. "You must go back inside. Your Mama will have great need of you."

"And you?" Her voice was thick with tears, which she was trying hard to suppress. "What will happen to _you_?"

"Cecily, Cecily," almost unconsciously he smoothed the hair escaping from her long plait. "I must go back out there with Father. We can stop this."

"No, Stuart... it's too dangerous. Everyone is so angry with us..."

But Cecily's voice carried a hopeless note, and Jack felt the dread rising again, threatening to engulf him. Argue, dammit, he thought, furiously. Argue with him, Cecily, keep him safe. But Stuart was speaking again.

"We have to, Cece. Someone has to speak with the peasants, or all the houses will be destroyed in the same way ours has been. We need to make sure you are all kept safe. Come, you know this. Together we can stop this violence. We must, Cecily!"

The little girl seemed to shrink. A moment passed, and then she buried her head in his chest, sobbing her acquiescence into his shirt front. Holding her tight, he reached behind her and opened the French window, twisting her round and pushing her through.

"Look after your Mama," he whispered in her ear. "We'll be back as soon as we can." And with one swift kiss to the top of her head, he was gone, and Cecily had sunk to the floor, nerveless fingers pressed to her mouth.

There was a click behind her, and the room was softly illuminated by lamplight.

"Cecily! Thank God," and her mother was hurrying across the floor, followed by what must, Jack assumed, be the missing servants. Cecily's mother, dropping the lamp on a table, fell to her knees in turn to clasp her arms round her daughter. Jack, in increasing panic, felt no great sense of shock when he saw her face; in another incarnation she would be his first wife, Sara. Here and now, he had no time to spare for surprise.

Clinging together, with Jack the unseen observer, Cecily and her mother remained where they were until the commotion began to die away, and the crowd began to disperse. There was a long period of quiet, then just before daybreak a sudden volley of rifle fire could be heard, followed by screaming, then running feet, as the last of the crowd raced away past the windows of the room they sat huddled in. Cece raised her head, queried "Mama?" once, but was silenced by her mother's finger against her lips, and they resumed their position, waiting, waiting.

The dawn had fairly begun and the sun was heating the air to an already almost unbearable degree before their suspense was alleviated. By this stage, Jack was numb with dread, his emotions so much one with Cecily's that he could no longer truly distinguish between the fear for Stuart and the fear for Sam...

Then the men returned, and Jack could only watch, helpless and undone, as his worst nightmare played out in front of him... Stuart carried in on a makeshift board, the blooming red stain over the front of his shirt. Cecily's heartbroken weeping as her mother held her father tight, whispering "Thank God, oh, thank God. Oh, but _Stuart,_ " over and over again.

"He saved us, CeCe." It was her father, kneeling in front of her, prying her hands away from the body. "They didn't want to listen to us, but Stuart spoke to them so clearly, so passionately," here he choked on his words, and swallowed, hard.

"There was just one man who refused to listen to him, the main ringleader. He shouted that we lied... then he fired his rifle." Cecily sobbed harder, and Jack realised, dully, from inside his own pain, that you can actually hear a twelve year old heart break, if you're close enough. It sounded like a single bell tolling, just the once.

Inside his little niche, Jack felt as broken as they were. Every time Carter went through the Gate, or off in a ship, without him there to watch her back, he faced this fear, the fear that she wouldn't come back to him. Still he watched her go, didn't try and stop her, trusted her to do what was best, for the SGC, for Earth...

Here, on this polished wooden floor, in front of the body of a first love, here's where he learnt to do that. And, oh God, it was too hard! He couldn't do it anymore, he couldn't! His panic increasing with Cecily's sobs, he could no longer distinguish between the man lying dead on the floor beside him, over 130 years ago, and Colonel Samantha Carter-O'Neill, his wife _now._ Oh God, he'd lost her! He'd lost her!

The ayah, slightly shamefaced, came forward with a cup which, at a nod from her mother, she held to Cecily's lips. The bitter liquid ( _tea, laced heavily with opium,_ his mind registered _),_ made her splutter, but enough went down to drag her into a drugged sleep in her father's arms, giving her a respite from her overwhelming grief.

As she lost consciousness, so too did Jack, his last coherent thought being of Sam...

_First and second cousins did marry in the 19th Century, so it wasn't a pipe dream of Cecily's that she and Stuart might end up together. And although she never truly got over him, she did have a fascinating life..._

**Chapter 10: Chapter 10**

_Thanks for all the wonderful reviews - I appreciated every one! See, I'm writing through the flu, even... sneeze._

_This is a shorter chapter - it's really here as a bridge over the central part of the story. I hope by the end of it we've got our very own wryly ironic General back._

Jack came floating towards consciousness, still weeping uncontrollably. The sight of Carter lying dead in front of him filled his mind. The fact that it was not the woman he was married to that he was seeing didn't seem to make a difference. As Cecily, he had hero- worshipped Stuart, and the loss had been devastating. No matter that Sam still lived; he felt that loss, at this moment, as intently as his soul had that still, humid morning in 1879. The person he loved most in the world was gone, and the hole in his heart felt infinite.

Gradually he became aware of himself, curled into a fetal position, arms across his eyes. He could hear a voice, repeating something over and over, and over again. It took him some minutes to realise the voice was his, and still further time to understand what he was saying.

"It's too hard. It's too hard. It's too _hard."_

"General O'Neill."

The voice was cultured, accentless, but definitely female. For a moment he wondered at its familiarity, searching his mind, then he remembered and suddenly realised where he must be.

General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

The dark eyed twice-ascended woman was kneeling beside him, hand hovering over his head as if she were unsure if she were permitted to offer comfort in this way or not. He was back in the shimmering radiance, and the form he wore was his own. Avatar or not, it felt good to recognize himself again. For a moment he lay still, unable to move a muscle, then slowly closed his eyes again.

"It's too hard."

His voice was a mere whisper.

"I can't keep this up." He opened his eyes again, begging for her understanding. "I had to let him go. And he didn't come back!"

But the intensity of the grief was fading... as he heard himself speak he realised it was Cecily talking, Cecily's loss. His Carter was still alive, after all. He shuddered internally, suddenly vividly aware of how hard it must be for her, watching him lying there day after day, neither dead nor alive. Poor Sam.

His breathing had slowed, and the grief for a lost love was subsiding as he came fully back to himself again, rising up to a sitting position. For a moment they sat quietly, and Jack could feel she was waiting for him to break the silence

"It was all just too much."

He was painfully honest with her. As before, he couldn't think of a reason not to be.

"Seeing Stuart lying there... every time Sam goes through the 'Gate without me, I worry that's going to happen." He looked down, dangling his hands between his legs.

"And then, of course, there was Charlie. The circumstances were... similar." His tone indicated he really didn't want to discuss this, and the woman beside him sighed softly, sympathetically.

Jack sat up straighter, and turned his head to face her.

"Have I messed it up? Is that why I'm back here?" He met her gaze straight on, but his eyes held fear.

The ageless face softened, and she shook her head.

"Oh no. No, you're doing well. Very well."

She reached out to him, and again he had the strange experience of seeing her arm meld with his own.

"You were in such distress... you needed a break, a chance to regroup."

He couldn't fault her reasoning. Already, though, as Cecily's life retreated back across the years that separated them, he was seeing with greater perspective.

"You know," he stopped, unsure of exactly what he wanted to say, playing with the frayed edges of the jeans he appeared to be wearing while he got his thoughts together.

"The first lives I visited... I was meeting up with people who were already gone in my lifetime. I was so glad to see them again..."

He paused again, lost in thought.

"Then, to see Sam, and have to witness what happened..." The echo of Cecily's keening filled his mind again, and he winced.

"Well, I haven't lost her. And I'm damned if she's going to lose me just yet!"

The woman beside him nodded approvingly.

"I'm very glad to hear you say that. But it's not over yet. You still have more of your journey to make. There are still lessons to learn."

"OK, that's fine." Jack, being eminently reasonable, had something else to ask.

"But I need _something_ , something that gives me hope I will get back. Back to myself, and to Sam. There must be _some_ hope you can give me?" His gaze was intense, focused fully on the figure before him, who was biting her virtual lip, obviously having some sort of internal debate.

"Please."

He said nothing further, just watched as the AAA (nope, he still had no clever name for her. Need Daniel for that) closed her eyes briefly, then opened them again. She paused for a moment, then spoke softly.

"Listen."

Just the one word, and he immediately began to question her.

"To what? What am I...?"

"Shhhh." She sounded faintly annoyed, and he gathered that whatever she was engaged in doing wasn't as easy as it looked. So he shut up, and concentrated on listening.

And there was _something_ , just on the edge of hearing, a tiny sound. Concentrating hard he focused on it, willed it to become louder. And there it was...

"Well, we have the information Neftun gave us. And Vala's going to be OK, physically at least." A deep sigh. What was all that about? The voice faded and he heard footsteps, moving away. The sound of other voices intervened, then, with a lift of joy, he heard Sam. Her voice was closer than Daniel's had been; he could swear she was whispering in his ear.

"Jack, I'm convinced you can hear me. I'm convinced I'm not talking to myself here. So stop being so damn stubborn! Just squeeze my hand, Jack. One little squeeze. Please Jack?"

Reflexively he clutched his hands, and although he felt nothing, Sam's voice reacted immediately, with a shocked intake of breath. Then he heard her calling, her voice joyful,

"Carolyn! _Carolyn!_ I felt him, he squeezed my hand! Oh my God, he really did! Oh Jack..."

Sam's excited voice faded away, and Jack, breathing hard, opened his eyes again. For some reason he felt as if he'd been running, his chest heaving with an effort he didn't recall making.

"She felt me," he whispered, awed. "She really did."

The woman before him just nodded, a faint smile on her lips. Behind her, the archway coalesced again, growing solid.

"She did. And you now have more brain function than before, and your wife and your friends have renewed hope of your eventual recovery." She rose, and gestured to the doorway.

"Are you ready, now, to resume your journey?"

He got easily to his feet, and faced her, smiling again.

"I am." But after a few steps, he paused, as a thought struck him.

"Just, one thing..." He bit his lip in turn, unsure if he were allowed to ask, then ploughed ahead anyway.

"Cecily - I liked her. What happened to her? Did she have a, a good life?"

He felt apprehension for just a second, before the AAA was nodding, smiling back at him.

"She did. She never truly got over losing Stuart, but she was able to move on, and live a very interesting, varied life. She campaigned vigorously for women's rights, chaining herself to a lamppost outside the House of Commons on one occasion."

Jack grinned. He couldn't help it. That sounded just like her, he thought. After all, she'd joined in with a riot.

The dark eyed avatar was continuing.

"She never did marry, although from her mid-twenties she carried on a very passionate, life-long affair with the Anglo-Indian Envoy to London. A fascinating, highly educated man... in fact, he was the incarnation of Dr Jackson's soul in that particular lifetime. They made a very good pair."

There was a strangled gulp, and she looked up, alarmed. Jack's grin had frozen in place, and his eyes were wider than usual.

"General? Jack?" She reached out a concerned hand. "Are you unwell?"

He shook himself, and released the breath he'd been holding with a rather strained laugh.

"I don't suppose there's a chance you're kidding me?"

Her look of faint bewilderment drew another chuckle from him. "No. Guess not. I'm perfectly well. I'm fine. I'm, er, very glad it all worked out for Cecily." He laughed again, more easily this time.

"Just, um, next time I ask a stupid question like that, don't tell me anything, OK?"

He grinned at her slight frown of incomprehension, muttered "Daniel, huh?" under his breath, then turned to face the archway. Drawing a deep breath, and squaring his shoulders, he strode through, and didn't look back.

**SGC**

In the infirmary, there was controlled chaos. Dr Lam was taking Jack's pulse, and studying her watch with a frown. Without a word she began hooking him up to the monitors around the bedside and fixing cuffs round his arms. Sam, face alight, stood beside the bed, trying to keep out of her way.

"What's up?"

Cam, Daniel and Teal'c were in the doorway, hovering anxiously. There had been no indication yet if the commotion was due to good or bad news.

"I felt Jack squeeze my hand." Sam didn't beat around the bush. "He's going to come back to us, guys!" There were tears in her eyes, and she blinked, looking down at Jack, whose hand she still held. The monitors bleeped suddenly into life, with a variety of curves and pulses making their way across the screen.

Carolyn exhaled.

"Here." She pointed out a particular line to Sam. "And here." Her face suddenly broke out into a rare smile. "His brain activity is much better than it was yesterday. This is looking good, people."

She unfastened one of the cuffs, but left the monitors attached. Bending over her patient, she said, sincerely, "Well done, General O'Neill." Then, with a last smile and a supportive squeeze of Sam's arm, she left the room.

Her place was immediately taken by the members of SG-1, crowding around, beaming at Sam. Before anyone could say anything, though, footsteps could be heard flying down the corridor outside; a second later Vala's breathless face popped round the door, pigtails askew.

"What's happened? I heard all the noise. Sam? Daniel?"

Daniel reached out a hand and pulled her into the room, squishing Cam over to make space. Sam grinned at her friend, happy tears in her eyes.

'It's Jack" She glanced down at the bed, as Vala gasped.

"He's coming home."

**Chapter 11: Chapter 11**

**SGC**

It was the morning after, and Jack's brain scans still showed improvement. He hadn't Instantly woken up (much to Vala's disappointment) but the doctors working on his case were hopeful that he would and hopeful that any brain damage sustained would, in fact, be minimal. This was a huge improvement on their initial assessments, and Sam, after getting her first good night of sleep in over two weeks, felt revitalised and rejuvenated this morning. So much so that she had surprised Daniel in his lab some hours ago, carrying two cups of freshly brewed coffee, and asked to be included in the investigation.

Daniel, after a moment's hesitation, had asked her if she was sure she was ready to jump back into it, and, on seeing her impatient nod, had scooted over and made room for her. That had been nearly five hours ago.

There was silence in the lab. But it was a companionable silence, the sort broken by the occasional "Ha!" or alleviated by the odd bar of music hummed almost under the breath. Sam and Daniel sat on chairs at opposite sides of the long workbench, cups of coffee piling up around them, some empty, some half full, some long forgotten. They'd been at it since the early hours, and it was now nearly lunchtime.

Daniel broke the silence with a definitive grunt, and slammed his pen down a little too hard on the desk top. The noise and vibrations startled Sam, who jerked up from the microscope she was working on, with a surprised "What?"

"Nothing. That's what." Daniel rooted amongst the coffee cups around him, picked a likely candidate for last-poured and drained it, setting the cup down and scrubbing his hands through his hair and over his face.

"Not a single reference to a "blue planet" in any of the works, or in anything from the quadrant of space we were in. My eyes are crossing and the letters are jumping."

He looked so forlorn that Sam pushed aside her equipment and reached over the worktop to grasp his hand, briefly.

"Don't beat yourself up." She glanced back at her microscope, and sighed.

"I'm having no real luck either. SG's 3 and 8 have been visiting planets in that vicinity and bringing back soil and rock and water samples, and I can't find anything blue in them either. I was hoping for a high concentration of something like Azurite which might at least indicate we were on the right track, but... nothing."

She didn't look too cut up about it though, and Daniel was glad. After the trauma of the last two weeks, Sam had been walking about since yesterday with a quiet glow. Despite the fact that Jack was still in a coma, she was now convinced it was just a matter of time, and was prepared give him that. He was, she insisted, on his way back to her.

"So. Lunch?" When in doubt, eat. "Cafeteria should be relatively quiet still."

"Yeah, good idea." Sam stood up decisively, and brushed herself off. For the first time she appeared to notice how empty the room was. "Where's Vala? I would have thought she would have been in here this morning."

Daniel ushered her out the room, pulling the door shut behind him. Hands in his pockets, and rocking slightly on his heels, he replied, not looking at her.

"She's training with Teal'c. Four hours every morning, and then she's often back there in the evening too." He sighed, and met Sam's eyes. His own were sad.

"She's determined to be able to avoid any repeats of the Colfrinchan incident. She's furious with herself that she was overpowered _'so easily' "_ His voice was suddenly angry, and Sam glanced at him, worried.

"There were eight men there, and she blames herself for being weak! _Eight_ , Sam! No-one should have to be so prepared that they can take on eight men by themselves."

They walked on in silence for a while. Then,

"You did." Sam's voice was quiet. Daniel glanced down at her.

"Well, yes. But I was furious, I had rage on my side. And anyway, it's different."

"Is it?" Her brow was furrowed. " Despite the obvious difference in size and possibly strength, I think any woman facing rape has anger and fear spurring her on. And if she has the skills and the training, perhaps she can make enough of a difference to the situation to prevent it, well, you know, getting totally out of hand." She shrugged, obviously a bit uncomfortable with the topic, but forged on anyway.

"I'm not saying it would have altered the outcome, Daniel, but it sounds like being able to put up more of a fight would have made Vala feel better about herself."

They walked in silence for a bit. Sam, looking out from under her eyelashes, watched the struggle he was having playing out over Daniel's face. She often wondered if he realised how expressive his features were, how his internal musings could be read so easily by those watching him. Or perhaps it was just that she knew him so well; perhaps it wasn't everyone. Just them. Just the SG-1 family.

"I should have taken better care of her." He said it flatly, glumly, and Sam shook her head.

"You should have listened to her, Daniel, but you need to trust her too, to do whatever she needs to do to feel safe again." Sam laid a hand on his arm, and squeezed gently.

"After all, there are times you won't be there to look after her, and she'll have to rely on her strength and wits."

Daniel was having trouble with this. He burst out with "Hang on a minute! That's her old life - she's part of us now. She shouldn't have to think like that, dammit."

Sam, looking sideways at him, with a slight grin on her face, wondered if she should point out how like a protective partner he sounded... but then decided against it. If that relationship was meant to be, it would happen naturally, on its own. Still, she wondered if he had any idea what his actual feelings towards Vala were. After her conversation with Teal'c, she'd found herself speculating on all sorts of possibilities, which may or may not have played out in those lost 50 years. She'd had to bite her tongue a couple of times not to bring it up again.

Her musings were disrupted by their arrival at the door of the commissary. Daniel, hands firmly pushed into his jeans pockets, would have gone straight past if she hadn't nudged him. His mind was still on their conversation.

"So you think it's a good thing, then? Vala training with Teal'c all the time?"

"I do." Sam spoke firmly. "She needs to get her self confidence back, and to feel safe in her own skin again, Daniel." She looked up at him, grinning wryly. "Believe me, I know how devastating the loss of control is. After you've been... in that position, it's vital to get that self esteem back."

Daniel sighed, and reached over to give her a quick hug. "Jonas Hansen was a first class ass, Sam. It was definitely third time lucky with regards to your engagements." He grinned down at her peal of laughter, and together they strolled over to the counter.

In the gym, Vala was in fact working out with both Teal'c and Cameron. Like Daniel and Sam, they had been at it now for some hours, and Vala's muscles were shaking with the effort. Regretfully she thought it was probably time to stop, so held up her hand for time out. Cam, with lightning fast reflexes, halted the stick he'd been swinging at her and leaned on it instead, panting.

"You are doing much better, Vala Mal Doran."

While Cam and Vala were breathless and stretching aching muscles, Teal'c had only a slight sheen of sweat to show for the exertion he had undertaken. He swung a white towel around his neck, and passed water bottles to his team mates.

"I think your levels of fitness are fast approaching what they once were." He drank deeply, then smiled at her. " You can be proud of your hard work."

Vala, her breathing now easing, returned the smile.

"Thanks Muscles. I can feel the difference." The smile faltered slightly. "I can't believe I let myself get so out of shape!"

"Hardly out of shape, Princess." Cam, gallant as ever, was rubbing his head. Emerging from under the towel, his face was grim. "Still, we might all be needing to be in peak fitness sooner rather than later. As soon as our tame geniuses work out where this 'blue planet' is, we'll be going in."

"Bra'tac has promised a force of Jaffa, should they be needed." Teal'c, now also frowning, finished gathering their stuff together. SG-9 were outside the door, awaiting their turn."He is very eager that this matter should be resolved as soon as possible"

"Me too, big guy." Cam opened the gym door. "Me too."

It wasn't until they were eating dessert that the idea hit Sam. Daniel was having pie, but she'd picked up her usual, the blue jello. Between spoons four and five the figurative little light bulb on top of her head lit up and she paused, eyes widening. Daniel noticed, frowned, and then spoke thickly through a mouthful of apple and ice-cream.

"What? What is it?" He swallowed and tried again. "Your expression..Sam?"

"Um, I'll be right back." She was getting to her feet, jello forgotten, eyes narrowed in calculation. "See you in a bit," and she was gone, hurrying out of the room. Daniel, mouth open and pie forgotten, was trying to work out what had set her off, when the rest of the team arrived, and sat down beside him. Vala, noticing he was distracted, promptly pinched his pie.

"Where's Sam off to?" Cameron had a plate of pasta, balanced precariously on top of a large bowl of fruit salad, which he attacked enthusiastically. "She didn't even say hi on her way out."

"I don't know." Daniel was frowning. "She was eating her jello, and suddenly came over all 'Eureka-ish!'." He waved his hands a bit helplessly, trying to indicate what he meant.

"That's my Daniel." Vala was arch. "Ever the linguist."

Cam snorted with laughter at this, and Daniel gave her a disgusted look, but Teal'c was silent. He was staring at Sam's leftover jello, his head cocked to one side and his expression thoughtful. The others quietened down.

"Teal'c?" That was Cam. "What're you thinking?"

"Samantha Carter as eating this jello when she left." Teal'c spoke slowly. Daniel nodded.

"This _blue_ jello," Teal'c reiterated, pointedly. Daniel's mouth suddenly formed a perfect 0 of comprehension.

"Something to do with the planet - must be!" He grabbed up his coffee, then, remembering all the cups in his lab, grimaced and set it down again. "Must go." And he was off too, at speed.

"Genius burns," remarked Cam, through a mouthful of pasta. He gave his team mates a smug look. "Told you they'd figure it out."

"It just suddenly struck me." They were crowded into the lab, watching as Sam illustrated what she'd found on the laptop computer.

"I had been going about it all wrong." She indicated the samples piled up next to her microscope. "All these soil and water samples, useless." She turned back to them, face alight.

"It's the _atmosphere_. Light travels though it in such a way that, looking at the planet from a vantage point of some light years away, you can see it has a halo, surrounding it." She beamed.

"A _blue_ halo," Daniel breathed, looking at the screen. "And this is, of course, visible from the entire quadrant, so calling it the "blue planet" makes sense." He turned a delighted face to Sam. "You've cracked it! Well done!"

"Soooo," Cam drew out the word. "Time to let General Landry in on this, people. And then, time to go."

There were nods all round the table, and Sam got up, shutting her laptop.

"I'll take this up to the General. I have to pop in and check on Jack too."

She looked around at them all. "And, by the way, guys, I'm coming along this time." She held up a hand as a chorus of protests rose. "No arguments. You've been fighting this battle for me for weeks now - it's time I did my share."

Cam and Daniel opened their mouths to argue further, but Teal'c lifted a hand to still them.

"If Colonel Carter-O'Neill feels well enough to join us," he said slowly, his eyes holding Sam's, "then I, for one, will welcome her experience and expertise on this mission." A smile softened his stern face, and Sam, relieved, smiled softly back.

"Thank you, Teal'c," then, breaking the moment and looking round, "I'll let you all know what General Landry has to say."

Then she was gone, and SG-1 broke up to get ready for the next step in this campaign. Daniel, left alone in his lab, swept the books to one side and into a rough pile, and, with a sigh, began gathering up the discarded coffee cups.

**Chapter 12: Chapter 12**

Jack had instinctively shut his eyes as he stepped through the archway. It now occurred to him that this might not be wise (what if it was yet another battlefield?) and he waited for the slight moment of disorientation he experienced this time to pass, steadying himself mentally. It didn't sound like a battle. That had to be good, right?

General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

The shimmer still filled his vision, and he blinked. It dimmed, fluctuated, and then withdrew from the corners of his eyes, retracting down to a single, bright neon line of text. **Jimmy's Bowling Alley** it said, and Jack took a moment to acknowledge he was once again somewhere else, _someone else_ , before heaving a sigh and turning around to get a better idea of where and who that was.

The bowling alley was pretty empty. The identical sign now opposite him was flickering slightly round the edges, and occasionally one of its letters would sputter out entirely, and remain dark for a moment before wearily sparking back into life. There were ten lanes, and only two had bowlers at them. A couple of teenage girls, wearing the slimline patterned dresses and cinched in waists of the 1940's, were flirting with a couple of young men in uniform, hair shaved close to their heads military fashion, some four lanes away. As he watched, one of the girls took a sip of her root beer float, pursing her lips round the straw and looking up coquettishly from under her eyelashes. The young soldier grinned down at her in appreciation, and said something Jack couldn't catch. It made her giggle, her permanently waved hair bouncing on her shoulders.

He, on the other hand... he glanced around him. Nope, no pretty teenage girls with bouncy permanent waves in this lane. His bowling companions were three older men, sipping beers and fiddling with the bowling balls, lining them up ready to play. While they had their backs to him, he studied them; bent shoulders, cardigans, gray heads. It was a surprise to him when one of them turned round to see that he was probably only in his fifties. The fact that Cameron Mitchell's face flashed briefly over the slightly sagging jowls and bristly white five o'clock shadow came as a bit of a surprise too. He'd felt an affinity with the kid, sure, when he'd met him after the battle with Anubis, but you couldn't say they were close, back in his real life. Yet here was Cam Mitchell's soul, looking out of these slightly rheumy blue eyes.

The pretty teenager was now leaning in close to her soldier boy, her hand on his arm, whispering something in his ear. Her slightly dumpier, plainer friend frowned, and picked a bit listlessly at her flowered dress; her hair was not waved, and was pulled back in a sensible band. Jack, caught looking and now rendered uncertain by the barely concealed leer in the watery old eyes in front of him, thought to glance down at himself. Button down shirt, high waisted trousers, bowling shoes. Young hands - he quickly threw a glance the way of the polished chrome bar behind him, and, despite the way the metal distorted his features, he was able to see enough to know he was a teenager himself, short hair slicked back, fresh faced.

"Eye for the pretty girls, eh?" The older man leered openly now, and winked meaningfully "Was just the same at your age, lad. So many pretty lasses, so little time." He heaved a sorry sigh, but kept a reminiscent grin on his face. "Then I met your grandma - and that was me roped and tied. Ah well." He glanced once more at Jack, and gestured behind him. "Need a top up of your soda? Reg, Joe, 'nother beer?"

"Uh, yes please." Jack suddenly realised he was right up front in this kids' head, and hastily stepped back into his recess. He had to admit he was highly amused at being Cameron's grandson; he figured perhaps he could gather up a few more homespun sayings to add to Cam's collection and confuse him with when he finally got back to Sam and the gang. Grandpa wandered off to the bar, and Jack sank down onto the rather rickety old chair he found behind him, wincing slightly when the cracked cushion nipped his thigh.

"So, kid." The other two men had finished setting up their balls, had finished with the low grade bickering they'd been having since he'd arrived in this lifetime, and, satisfied, had turned back towards him. The one who spoke, Reg, Grandpa had called him, was almost white haired, and was missing an arm; his cardigan sleeve was pinned up neatly. His face, however, was sharp as a tack, deep brown eyes twinkling. For that first moment, Jack saw Jacob Carter's features impressed clearly over the actual lines of this man's face, and started. Jacob? Hadn't he already been born in the 1940's? He was only ten years or so older than Jack...

"So. Graduated yet?" Taking a seat beside Jack, he fumbled in his pocket with his remaining hand, and pulled out a tin of cigarettes. With the ease of long practice, he flipped open the lid, extracted one, and sucked it nimbly into his mouth. Tin returned to pocket, he leaned over to Joe, who had already struck a match, and sucked in deeply, eyes closing in contentment.

"Not yet, sir." The voice coming out of his mouth was slightly higher than Jack's own; a young voice, not completely sure of itself yet. Jack guessed his age to be around 17. The next words confirmed this impression.

"Graduation's next month, then I turn 18." The young man swallowed, hard, and his eyes turned again, as if pulled by a magnetic force, to the other group in the alley. This time though, it was the soldiers his gaze lingered on.

"Be able to enlist, if you wanted to."

The brown eyes were friendly, but the expression held a sharpness - this was something of a test question, Jack realised, and wondered if the young man knew it.

"I'm thinking about it, sir." It was blurted out, and Jack felt the young man's cheeks grow hot and his eyes drop away from that knowing brown gaze. He found himself studying the scuffed toe of the bowling shoes, now being worked into a hole in the carpet with great industry.

"Reckon that's why your mother made you come along with us old'uns tonight." His grandfather was back, shuffling slightly on the thinly carpeted floor. He handed over a soda, and passed out beers to the others, sitting down heavily with a sigh once this task was done.

"No sir!" His voice was indignant. " She didn't make me. I like spending time with you!"

 _Suck up_ , Jack thought dryly, although it had to be said that the kid's tone was sincere. His grandfather chuckled.

"You're a good kid, Pip. I can see you mean it, too, son." He sucked on his beer. "But there's got to be things a kid like you'd rather be doing on a Saturday night than hanging out with your grandad at the bowling alley." He cast a disparaging eye at his companions. "And your grandad's crumbling old chums."

"Speak for yourself!" Reg was indignant. "You've a cheek on you, Russell McCleod,..." his words were swallowed by a great hacking cough, and he bent over double, hawking and trumpeting, holding his half-smoked cigarette away from his body. Eventually, eyes streaming and chest still hitching, he sat upright, and took another pull. "Ah, one day a fit like that'll kill me." He cleared his throat noisily, took another drag, then looked at the cigarette. "Doc says these things should be clearing out all the muck in my lungs. Doesn't feel like it personally." He shook his head, dispute with Grandpa forgotten, and sank back into his chair.

"If you're quite finished hogging the conversation..." Grandpa's tone was acerbic, but his eyes were worried as they met Joe's gaze over the top of the white head.

"You go on." Reg waved his hand, tranquil again. The blue smoke wreathed around his head, and Jack felt the kid in whose body he was residing struggle to suppress a cough of his own.

The little group from down the alley was leaving, the girls gathering up their clutch bags and powdering their noses with the aid of little compacts. Jack noticed the pretty, flirty one applying a quick coat of lipstick, rolling her lips together to make it stick, and blotting on a tissue while the men quickly finished their sodas. _No drinking in uniform_ he thought, or perhaps it was just that they weren't old enough yet. _Old enough to fight for their country, yet not old enough for a beer... something screwy there..._

Pip was watching them with a strange mixture of fear and longing; as they went past, the girls were chattering, even the plain one galvanised into something approaching comeliness by her enthusiasm for the topic.

"He's so handsome, with that little moustache, and those _eyes...''_ She heaved a deep, dreamy sigh, her eyes sparkling. She'd be pretty too, Jack thought, if she could just get over the feeling of being overshadowed by her perkier friend.

"Oh, when he said 'Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn' I nearly _fainted_ dead away," her friend simpered, closing her eyes theatrically; and the soldier she'd been flirting with leaned in close, said in a Clark Gable'esque growl, "My dear, I don't _give_ a damn," and she swooned gracefully, hand over her forehead, making sure to totter just enough that he had to catch her, his arm around her waist. Jack noted, amused, that he didn't let go afterward, but kept his hold on her as they all exited Jimmy's, waving goodbye to the plump barman now polishing glasses behind the little bar.

"It's not all pretty girls and flirting you know." His grandfather was watching him with an astute expression. "If that's what you're after, best to stay far away from the recruiting officers, lad." He sighed. "Your mom's terrified you're going to go off to the war and get yourself killed, Pip. You need to think carefully about what you really want to do."

Joe had started the game off by bowling a ball carefully down the dead centre of the lane, knocking down all but one of the pins. Pleased with himself, he grunted at Reg, indicating it was his turn to shine. Joe didn't speak much, Jack noted, and wondered how Reg, with his obvious disability, would handle the challenge.

His attention was drawn back to Pip as the youngster said, slowly, as if thinking aloud. "You signed up, Grandpa, soon as the last war started. Mom told me." He looked the older man straight in the eye. "Did you think about it much beforehand?"

 _Mouthy kid,_ Jack thought, semi approvingly. _Get out of that one, Grandpa!_

But Grandpa didn't seem too disturbed by the question. Instead, he rooted around in his pocket, and pulled out a pipe, stem polished with long use. With a satisfied "hmmm", he dug in the other, equally capacious, pocket and found a tin of tobacco. Using slow, measured pinches, he filled the bowl, pausing to sniff the scent of the blend appreciatively. Jack, fascinated, was gripped by his movements. God, did anyone do anything this slowly and methodically anymore? His own life, only 60 odd years from now, moved at breakneck speed. No time to sit and think about what to say next, like Grandpa was doing.

Bowl filled, Grandpa lit a match and set the pipe burning. With a long sigh he leaned back, and drew deeply. Jack, despite his distaste for smoking in general, found the smoke from this almost pleasurable. _Cherry tobacco_ his mind supplied, and he knew that somewhere, back in his own past, he'd smelled this flavoursome scent before. The memory was gone, however, just the small tag of the smell remaining.

In front of them, Reg nimbly picked up the ball with his remaining arm, and bowled an extraordinarily accurate line, knocking out all ten of the pins. His satisfied chuckle was punctuated by Joe's sigh as he heaved himself up to take another turn; Jack noticed they left Grandpa and Pip alone to have their talk out.

"Well, you see son," Grandpa was ready to resume, "at the start of the Great War, we didn't really know what war was about." He cast a sharp eye at Pip. "We thought it was all going to be a great adventure, and that we'd give Johnny Foreigner a good whipping and be home for Christmas, eating plum pudding from Berlin."

His eyes downcast, the old man paused, lost in thought.

"See, we didn't really think about the fighting part of it. We didn't realise that Johnny Foreigner had weapons too, some damn good ones, and that he might fight back as hard as he could. We all joined up in a big gang - life in Scotland was hard back then and the army offered us adventure and excitement, not to mention a warm bed and three full meals a day." He snorted. "All lies, that was. No warm beds on the Western Front, lad, and lucky if there was a meal a day over there in France."

Pip was leaning forward, straining to catch every word. Jack, too, was gripped by the story. A first hand account of the trench warfare of World War I - this man was living history! His pipe burning steadily now, glowing with each draw, Grandpa carried on with his story.

"Reg and I, we signed up soon as we could. Wasn't all youngsters back then," he gave Pip a pointed look, 'we were in our twenties already, had been going down the mines with our fathers and grandfathers for years. We were desperate for a change."

Reg and Joe were now engaged in a fierce battle, neck and neck in the scores. Reg's drawn features were alight with the thrill of competition; Joe was feverishly adding up figures on the small notepad and muttering to himself.

"Now, if you want to know what war can do to a man, son," pulling harder on his pipe, "you only need to look at old Reg there."

Pip's eyes turned; Reg was coughing again, great tearing hacks that bent him double. Joe was batting him on the back, and Reg was ineffectually fighting him off.

"Left his arm somewhere on the Somme, and lucky that's all he left behind him. Then got himself gassed further down the line. Lucky for me I was behind the lines that time, recovering from a concussion." Grandpa's tone and face were bleak.

"All those boys we joined up with, all the lads from the village. We all went off together, more than 20 of us, Pip lad, and it was just me and Reg and two others who came back." He suddenly knocked his pipe against the standing ashtray beside him, a flare of anger in his watery old eyes. "Just the four of us, kiddo. There was nothing left for us in Scotland. The village died out with all the young men dead." His breathing evened out.

"So we came here, to America, and I met your granny. Never went back, did we Reg?"

"Naw." Reg broke off his battle with Joe, and came over to them, leaning against the railings. He grinned down at Pip. "Never married neither, I didn't. Had a very peaceful life!"

Grandpa snorted again, and the men subsided into silence. Jack, his head full of the images that had been evoked, was startled when Pip spoke up, in a diffident voice.

"Would you do it again, Grandpa? Sign up, I mean. If you could, this time round?"

Grandpa's face creased. "Heck, son, I'm supposed to be talking you out of this!" He sighed again, gloomily. "At least, until your number comes up on the draft lottery. Not much you can do if that happens."

"You know, when we went off to fight, Reg and I and the others, we didn't really know what we were fighting for." He surveyed his drink gloomily, then took a gulp. "And to this day I'm not sure I know what that war was all about. Treaties and pride and trenches..."

"But this war now, well, I have to tell you, Pip, I don't like this Hitler. I don't like the stuff I'm hearing. I'm thinking if I were a young man, I'd be wondering if perhaps I should be doing something about it." He looked sideways at Pip.

"Thing is, son, it's up to you. I can't tell you not to go, and I can't tell you to go. Neither can your mother. You have to decide for yourself." He shifted uneasily on his chair, stretching his leg out and massaging the knee.

"It's difficult to decide."

Pip was twirling his glass of soda, watching the liquid swirl perilously close to the brim of the glass. "The guys at school, they're all saying they'll be enlisting soon as graduation's over." He looked up at the place where the little group of girls and their soldier boyfriends had been, just half an hour ago. "Girls like it. Those guys get a lot of attention." He let the drink settle, then drained the glass.

"Look, Pip." Grandpa reached over and placed a wiry hand on his arm. "You have to make that sort of decision based on what's real, not on the attention it gets you. Sometimes you don't get a choice, the government decides for you, and then you gotta go. But your mom, she wants you to go to college. Get a few more years education. Your dad, God rest his soul, wanted that too."

He inhaled deeply. "War is no picnic. I can tell you the things I saw in the last one; Reg can show you the injuries he got." The breath was let out in wheezy exhalation. "But despite all that, there is a fight to be fought, and it's a fight I reckon we need to win. So, lad, you can't just blindly follow everyone else, you hear me? You need to think about it, long and hard, and make a decision, on your own. One you can believe in. For yourself."

His eyes, faded and wispy though they were, held a deep intensity, and Jack could feel the cogs in Pip's head turning. He reckoned the kid would be doing some hard thinking over the next few days. Quite a lesson to learn, not to blindly follow the herd. To make your own mind up. Make a decision you could believe in. God knew that tendency had gotten him into trouble more times than he cared to count in the military.

The thought struck him - jeez! So that was Mitchell's fault! Here he was, learning a life lesson from the man's soul that had caused him no little grief... But, to be fair, Jack acknowledged, it made him what he was too. Able to make decisions under pressure, able to stand up for what he knew was right even if the high-ups said it was wrong... Able, despite daily misgivings, to lead.

 _Good lesson, kid,_ he imparted silently to the young man in whose body he was visiting, _and you're learning it young enough to make some use of it,_ and then was struck suddenly by the knowledge that, if he, Jack, were born around ten years from now, Pip would indeed die young. He wished he hadn't thought of that. He seemed a nice enough kid.

Grandpa had opened his mouth to say something more, but at that moment Reg, who was ready to bowl his next ball, began coughing even more violently than before. The impetus of the spasms bent him over double, and, in front of Pip's horrified eyes, spots of blood flew from his mouth, round his shaking fingers, staining the grubby floor.

"Reg! Hey, Reg!" Grandpa was on his feet, struggling forwards, and Joe was rushing back from the john, but it was Pip who got to him first, got to see the terrified eyes behind the hand, which was doing such a poor job of keeping Reg's destroyed lungs inside his body. As Pip reached him, a spasm shook the older man, and his arm caught the boy on his cheek, knocking him off balance. Pinwheeling, Pip caught his foot on a loose piece of carpet tile and fell, knocking his head a nasty shot on the railing and falling gracelessly to the floor. Through the stars dancing in his vision he saw Reg also falling, eyes rolling back in his head, arm and legs gone limp.

Not wanting to see more, or to witness his Grandpa's distress, Pip closed his eyes, and Jack, inside his head, felt the rush as his consciousness began to detach from this time and place. From Grandpa and his words of wisdom, from Reg, with his vain hope that the cigarettes might undo the damage caused by the gassing he'd received in the Great War. From Pip, who was learning that choosing how to live your life can sometimes be a lonely thing to do...

The noise of Jimmy's Bowling Alley faded...Jack was on the move again.

**Chapter 13: Chapter 13**

Preparation for a mission to the blue planet, tagged P6X-478, was well underway. General Landry had listened to what Sam had to say, then had nodded grimly, giving them the go. Bra'tac and a group of his most trusted Jaffa were due to arrive any minute. Cam and Teal'c were on alert to meet them as soon as they arrived, and Vala and Daniel were shut up in his lab, sorting through information the MALP had sent through from the planet on its exploratory mission yesterday.

Sam was finishing up some last bits and pieces that needed doing in her own lab, and she planned on spending some time beside Jack's bed before she went through the Gate with the rest of the team, to see what further information could be garnered on this new planet. Daniel was hopeful that they might actually get there before the meeting was held, and thus be able to surprise them at it. While Sam agreed that this would be first prize, she was still cautiously assessing the risks involved in such an operation, and her mind was full of lists and must-do's...It wasn't until just before the Jaffa contingent were due to arrive that she made it to the infirmary, and when she finally sat down in her usual spot beside Jack's bed, her mind was still full of the mission to come, and what they hoped to achieve with it.

The last time she'd been so busy inevitably came to mind. The big Jaffa ceremony had been planned for months, but it was only decided ten days before that she and Jack were to attend. There had been so much to arrange, and much of it had fallen to her to do; as well as the actual specifications of the event itself, and what was needed for the Head of Homeworld Security to attend, there were the little things that needed to be in place too. Jack's job saw him spending a lot of time away from home and of course Sam was often offworld. Whoever was home usually had to pick up the slack, and the week before the ceremony, it had been her...

"Do you remember, Jack?" Her voice was soft, almost whispered into his ear while she held his hand and stroked circles on his palm. She glanced round - there was no-one else in the room and the corridor outside appeared deserted too. She guessed she was safe enough to share the memory with him...

"Remember? You had been away for most of the week..."

_... some crisis had come up in Washington that needed his personal attention. He'd only arrived home a couple of hours ago, and found Sam in full organisational spin mode. Despite being in pajamas and ready for bed, she was rushing about trying to find their dress uniforms, medals, the shoe polish... and Jack had sat on the bed, a little forlornly, trying to get her attention._

_"Carter. CAAARTER!"_

_"JAAACK!" She echoed his tone, her back to him while sorting through the medals tin they kept carelessly thrown into the top drawer of the bureau. "What? I'm trying to get everything organized for tomorrow."_

_She found the medal she was looking for and snatched it up with a triumphant "Found it!" Glancing round with a smile she reassured him, "OK, nearly done now. Just have to check that the cleaning service returned your shirts..." She began opening the cupboards and riffling through the clothes hanging there._

_"Sam." The change in his tone had caused her to pause, and swing around. "Jack?"_

_"I much prefer those pajamas of yours when they're lying crumpled on the floor."_

_His tone was wheedling, and she couldn't help grinning, despite her worry over the details for the big Jaffa ceremony tomorrow. He was not the only one who had been working hard; she'd been offworld all day setting things up and liaising with the numerous operatives involved. She was tired, and wanted nothing more than to sink down next to him, curl herself around him and fall asleep. But not until all the details were in place; they had an early start the next day._

_Jack wasn't giving up, however. "Come to bed... I've been away for days and days and I want some reunion sex with my wife, dammit!"_

_"Reunion sex?" She'd found the shirts, and, checklist completed, she headed for the bed, ready now to play along._

_"Mmmm- mmm." Her husband grinned. He'd showered, and was wearing a ratty old pair of trackpants and nothing else. He looked, Sam thought, positively edible. Sinking down onto the edge of the bed, legs crossed under her, she teased him,_

_"Is reunion sex like make-up sex, then?"_

_"Almost as good." He was reclining on the bed now, propping his head up with his arm, grinning that lazy O'Neill grin at her. Her heart started beating a little faster._

_"Thing is, it's best if it happens the instant I walk in the door..." He reached over, grabbed her foot and pulled it towards him, massaging the arch and the soft spot under the little toe. She felt herself melting._

_"So, we've missed our chance at that, then?" She leaned back on her hands and nudged him somewhere in the middle of those trackpants with the other foot. "Pity. Guess we'll have to just catch some shut-eye, hmm?"_

_Jack's eyes narrowed. Leaning down, he very delicately bit the pad of her big toe, eliciting an involuntary squeal._

_"Well, I don't know, Carter," now he was nibbling the ball of her foot, "we could always go for Option 2. Make-up sex."_

_Her breath was definitely coming in shorter gasps now. "Perhaps I missed it, but I don't think we've been fighting, Jack."_

_He stopped what he was doing to her foot, ignoring her small whimper of protest, and sat back up, frowning._

_"Well, Samantha Carter-O'Neill, that is a problem." He thought for a moment, then pointed a finger at her._

_"You," he said, clearly and precisely, "are ugly. And your mother dresses you funny." Then he lay back down, looking absurdly pleased with himself. Sam felt her mouth drop open, then a need to giggle start deep down inside her chest._

_"Jack O'Neill, are you trying to pick a fight with me?"_

_She pulled her feet back, and shifted into a kneeling position, so she could look down on him. He raised his eyebrows in a "who, me?" expression of perfect innocence, and Sam couldn't help it. The giggle escaped, and she swallowed it quickly, racking her brain._

_"Well you, Jack O'Neill, have, have, **funny** hair!"_

_Jack's hand shot to his head, patting the spiky silver strands. His bottom lip popped out, and a small frown appeared between his eyes._

_"That's really nasty, Carter. I didn't think you had it in you." The chocolate brown eyes gleamed. " **Your** ears are as big as Micky Mouse's!"_

_She couldn't help it - her hands flew to her ears and her eyes widened. Then she saw him pulling his exasperated face, and remembered it was just a game. Little Samantha Carter hadn't been this kind of child - this was hard!_

_"At least I can hear better than you." She leaned forward, so that she was on all fours, and deliberately snuggled her face against his shoulder, nuzzling him. She heard a rumble from deep in his chest, and felt the shiver that passed through him at her actions. Against his neck, her lips curved in a grin._

_"Well, Jack O'Neill, you **smell** " She sniffed ostentatiously, for good measure, still pressed up close against his skin._

_"Oh, really?" His voice was husky, and his hand had come up against the back of her head, burying itself in her hair, and holding her in place. He brought his mouth round close to her ear, and she could feel his breath against the curve of her jaw. "What of?"_

_Her mind had gone completely blank. All she could feel was the closeness of him, the slight roughness of his chin as she ran her lips over it, the curve of his collarbone as she traced it with the tip of her tongue. Finally, she buried her nose back in the angle of his shoulder and neck, and her voice was just as husky as she answered him._

_"Of Jack. You smell of **Jack** " and at that he lost the control he'd been exerting, bringing his other hand up and into her hair, growling as he captured her mouth with his own and flipped the two of them over, trapping her body beneath his..."_

Sam sighed, feeling a faint, remembered shiver of desire pass through her. It had certainly been the best make-up sex she'd ever had, she thought to herself, a ghost of a grin curving her lips as she glanced down at Jack, slumbering peacefully, in the bed. She'd still been smiling inanely at the ceremony the next day...

Well, Jack was coming home. She was certain sure of that. And _boy_ was there going to be reunion sex when he did. Just you wait, Jack O'Neill...

"Sam!" Daniel's voice from further down the corridor broke the reverie. She could hear his footsteps coming along the corridor towards the infirmary.

"Yes? What's up?" And she was back in the present again.

When Master Bra'tac had come through the Gate, he had found Teal'c and Cameron waiting for him. Their greetings had been sombre. Bra'tac had been relieved to receive the message that General O'Neill was improving, but this latest betrayal within the Jaffa Nation had hit him badly, and he had not yet recovered his enthusiasm for his role as figurehead to his people. As he said, sadly and in private, to Teal'c, he felt as if he personally had somehow let the Jaffa people down by allowing this to happen, and he would not let Teal'c argue him out of this notion.

Bra'tac had brought a selection of his most trusted lieutenants with him. The general feeling now was that they were getting close to finding the ringleaders of this breakaway movement, and there was an increased need to be prepared for anything.

After Bra'tac had spent some quiet minutes at Jack's bedside, assuring the unmoving General that he would find those responsible for his injuries, he and his men had met with the SG teams in the briefing room. The Jaffa had taken up positions around the walls; they could not be persuaded to sit. General Landry had turned the meeting over to Daniel, who had relayed what information they had on the planet they were traveling to. Hank had closed the briefing by warning them to "be careful, people" and now they were ready to go.

The Gate room was crowded, and it took a while to get everyone sorted out. General Landry was there to see them off, a tradition he had carried on after taking over from General Hammond some years ago now. There was a feeling amongst those going on this mission that this might be the one, this might be the time they found the perpetrators of the attack, and the mood was tense but ready.

It was night on the other side of the Gate, as expected. The teams, SG-1 and the Jaffa augmented by Colonel Reynolds and SG-3, filed slowly through in the eerie light cast by the event horizon. Illuminated in the blue glow was the shallow, sandy arena in which this planet's Stargate was erected. The start of scrubby bushland could just be seen at the edge of the sand.

Shortly after they were all through, the wormhole blinked out of existence, leaving the area dark again except for the few fires that could be seen burning in the little settlement a couple of klicks away from where they stood.

There was a moment of silence, as they scanned the area. The Cam, half under his breath, spoke up.

"This way folks," and, indicating the direction with his hand, he gestured them towards the village. Nodding, Sam set off with Daniel and Vala close by her. Cam and Teal'c led the party of Jaffa, with Bra'tac at the rear, and Col Reynolds and the members of SG-3 moved to secure the perimeter around the Stargate.

All had so far proceeded as planned, and Sam was focusing on what to expect when they reached the village; most likely, she thought, an interlude of Daniel asking the locals to provide them with shelter and secrecy.

Suddenly, and without warning, all hell broke loose. There was a sudden barked command of "Jaffa _Kree_!" and the scrubby bush around the perimeter of the Gate arena was erupting into hostile Jaffa figures, holding staff weapons, firing zat guns. Sam heard a stifled oath from Master Bra'tac, and then he too was firing his staff weapon, as was Teal'c, crouched low and keeping a cool, calm head even during this emergency. As Sam watched, in the split seconds it took for her to retrieve her own weapon and begin firing, she saw him take out at least two of their attackers.

Alongside her Daniel was carefully aiming his gun, providing cover for Cam and Teal'c who were further ahead than their little group. Vala, always a quick study, had seen what he was doing and followed suit - lying full length on the ground to provide less of a target, she was ruthlessly shooting down any enemy aiming their weapons towards Teal'c and his little group of besieged Jaffa.

The kawoosh of the wormhole opening filled their ears, and the flickering blue light bathed the arena. "Thank God", thought Sam, someone had managed to dial home. She risked a glance behind her, saw a figure disappearing at speed and head first into the event horizon, but then saw a sight that made her heart sink. They were surrounded; the other three members of SG3 were being rounded up, hands on their heads, and were being marched towards them.

Despite a fair number of hostile Jaffa lying dead on the ground around them, there appeared to be no shortage remaining to gather the rest of the Tau'ri and their Jaffa allies up; Sam saw Teal'c realise that they were outnumbered, and slowly raise his one hand, putting his staff weapon down with the other. A second afterward, Bra'tac followed with the identical motion. Cam held his position for a little longer, but eventually, with a glance at Sam and a shrug of his shoulders, did the same. They were well and truly captured. With a sinking feeling Sam thought of Jack, lying all unknowing in his infirmary bed, and wondered when she would be able to get out of this one and back to the him and to the SGC again.

**Chapter 14: Chapter 14**

Jack swam slowly towards consciousness, a bit groggily. He wasn't certain the blow to the head from the chrome railings warranted this level of fuzziness, and then he realised. He'd switched again. This was another life, another body altogether. He'd never find out exactly what happened to Reg... although, considering Jacob must have been born around that time, he had a pretty good idea. Poor Reg.

But that life was fast fading, becoming nothing but a memory. As his mind became aware of his current surroundings, he felt himself sinking into this new place and time, becoming part of it.

He could feel a faint, warm breeze against his skin. It brought the smell of cooking fires to him; a particular smell he recalled only from his time on Abydos. Camel dung, hardened by the sun, burnt well and for a long period. These fires were burning the same bricks of dung he remembered.

Mixed with the unexpectedly not unpleasant scent of the fire was a spicy aroma... cumin, perhaps? Carter was into experimenting with spices. He just ate what was put in front of him and enjoyed the different array of flavours she brought to his rather mundane palate. On his cooking nights, he did steak on the barbecue.

And talking of steak... the wind blew a little harder and brought him a faint whiff of grilling meat. On Abydos, they sometimes cooked their meat on sharpened stakes held over the glowing coals. This scent was almost identical.

A sudden commotion broke out, a scuffle, and then childish voices could be heard, complaining bitterly. An adult voice intervened, stern at first, then lightening after the scolding was over. The language, again, was very similar to that spoken by Skaa'ra and Sha're, the difference being that, thanks to the body he was inhabiting, he could understand it. God, could he actually be on Abydos?

General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

The first thing he saw, through a gap in the tapestry-hung wall, was the side profile of the Sphinx. Earth, then. The giant carved cat with a man's face still had its nose. Long ago, then. Ancient Egypt. His mouth quirked up in a grin. Oh, it just _had_ to happen, didn't it?

He was in a tent of sorts. Hard to see what the actual outer shell of it looked like as the inside was hung with rich tapestries, and the floor carpeted with intricately patterned rugs. It got cold at nights in these desert locations, Jack knew. The furnishings weren't just for show. They had an important role to play in keeping the night winds off the inhabitants, huddled together inside.

The breeze blew again, and the curtain over the tent opening swung back, revealing an appealing scene of domesticity. As he had gathered, from his initial exploration before opening his eyes, fires burned and the pots that hung over them bubbled a delicious steam into the air. Goats wandered about the settlement, picking up any stray bits of rubbish and oddments of food they could find. As Jack watched, a dark eyed, dark haired young boy rushed into view, brandishing a stick, and began laying about the goats, shouting loudly at them. He was only about three feet tall; Jack watched, amused, as the goats nimbly avoided his ministrations and went calmly on with what they were doing

Three young woman walked into the picture, carrying baskets full of washing against their hips. At least one of them had a small toddler clinging to her robes, and she rested an absent hand against the child's head. They were absorbed in their gossip, yet managed to deftly avoid both the goats and the cooking fires, and as they passed the small boy, one of the woman broke off what she was saying to gesture sternly at the goats and shake her finger at the tiny herdsman. The little boy stuck his lower lip out.

It was such a wonderfully familiar scene before him that Jack couldn't help a grin escaping. The sloe-eyed young women, the little boy with the mop of black curls. Even the goats...

"It is difficult to imagine that I will see it no more."

The voice broke his reverie, and he turned swiftly, noticing the robes he himself wore swishing against the rug on which he stood. The voice was quiet, speaking again in the dialect he recognised from Abydos and which, of course, was the Ancient Egyptian tongue. The quietness wasn't all he noticed. The tone of the voice was deeply, wistfully, sad. Hopeless almost.

The speaker was sitting on the opposite side of the tent, with her back to him. She had pulled aside a fold of tapestry and was looking out at a scene very similar to the one he had been enjoying just moments before. On this side, two old women were stirring a pot with a stick, stopping now and then to sniff the steam, and sometimes adding a generous pinch of something from the spice bags they carried at their waists

The girl who spoke, the one with her back to him, had long dark hair, wavy, very glossy and twisted into a knot at the back of her head, with tendrils allowed to escape. She sat slumped, her attitude one of despair, but even in this posture it was possible to see that she was both slim and tall and, Jack imagined, beautiful. Why on earth would she be leaving here, if it made her so unhappy?

Then she glanced round to look at him directly, and he caught his breath. Her eyes were dark and almond shaped, her skin clear and creamy. But it was the fact that, for a split second, he saw Daniel there that caused him to gasp. Without conscious volition his eyes swept down, taking in the robes he was wearing, searching for a clue... Ah, there it was. His hands. His hands were older, ropey veins standing out. Surely he was way too old to be the husband of this glorious, vibrant young girl? _Please_ let him be too old...

Her next words reassured him.

"I hate to leave you, Father."

Startled, he looked up at her again, and saw the tears gathering in the beautiful eyes, threatening to fall. As he watched, one did overflow and escape, running a perfect trail down her skin. Still she remained unblinking, her eyes on his.

Way, way out of his depth, Jack finally remembered his recess, and thankfully retreated inside it, handing over full control of this body to its owner.

Almost immediately the older man spoke, closing his eyes briefly as if in pain, then focusing again on his daughter.

"Flower of the river." His voice was beseeching, the use of the pet name revealing his deep love for the girl before him. "Please, it is not too late to flee. Let me help you; you can be away from here before, well, before they come for you."

 _Flee? Before 'they' come to get you?_ Jack was perplexed. He had assumed the girl was getting married, moving to a tent of her own, still within reach. This sounded way more serious.

"I shall not." The girl lifted her chin in an expression that was pure Daniel, and made Jack smile. Her father, however, uttered a low groan.

"I shall not betray Ishaq by fleeing."

Her voice shook slightly, and she stiffened her shoulders, willing herself to remain strong. "If the word we have received is true...," she swallowed hard, and for a moment lost her battle against the shiver which ran through her body, " _if_ what they say is true, then Ra has already put him to death."

Another tear escaped her eyes, and she shook her head, angrily. " I shall not flee. I shall join my love in Paradise."

Inside his recess, Jack felt himself stiffen, and the hairs on the back of his neck rose in dismay as Ra's name was mentioned. Who knew if that was his reaction or this body's reaction? Perhaps it was both...

A head popped into the tent opening, startling them both.

"Anum! The Jaffa have been sighted. They are coming!" The young man turned his face to the girl. "Akila. You can still flee." He held out his hand. "Come, I will take you." His expression was open and earnest. Pleading.

But she shook her head, gave him a sad smile, and his face crumpled. "They will take you to Ra. You will be killed too, like my brother." His voice was barely above a whisper. "It is such a _waste,_ Akila!"

Still she didn't move, merely clasped her hands together.

"I am not afraid of death."

Her eyes met the young man's and held firm. He paused, then nodded briefly, his face conflicted, and, at a sign from her father, withdrew his head.

Akila heaved a deep sigh, and Anum crossed the gap between them in one step, falling to her side and grasping both her hands in one of his his.

"Daughter. Jabari is a good man. He would take you away, take care of you..." His grip on her hands intensified, and she grimaced in pain. Still, she did not pull away.

"Where could he take me that Ra would not find me, Father?" Her voice was bitter. "Is he not a god? Is he not _all-seeing_?" The last word was spat out, and she swallowed again, as if trying to wash away an ugly taste in her mouth. Her father bent his head.

"I grow unsure." His words were muffled by her robes, but she heard them, and stilled, looking at his bowed head. "I am no longer certain. Would a god behave this way?"

"Father." She was whispering now, frightened. "Tell me you have not spoken this heresy aloud to any but me! I could not bear it if he were to kill you too." Her voice held a note of panic, and Anum lifted his head, his face angry.

"You, my daughter, will no longer be alive. Why should you care what happens to me?"

"I wish to look down from Paradise, and see you still here." Akila's voice trembled. "I shall be reunited with Mother, perhaps, and we shall both watch you. Then when you join us in your old age, we shall choose reincarnation together."

The fight went out of Anum and he got heavily to his feet. His eyes were shadowed, and deeply weary.

"The promise of another life matters not to me at this moment." He shook his head, and rubbed his hand over his face, finally, despairingly, giving voice to what he could not hold in any longer.

"Could you not have waited, my daughter? Ishaq was such a new favourite of Ra's, so recently chosen to be among his household. Ra would have grown tired of his face soon enough, and would then have allowed him to live a life outside of the royal temple. Why did you not _wait?"_

"Can love ever wait?" Akila spoke in a whisper, her face averted. "Our passion was so strong, so _right_ , Father. How could we wait? It may have been years before Ra allowed Ishaq to marry, if ever." She turned anguished eyes to her father. _'"How could we wait?"_

Anum seemed to have shrunk into himself. He spoke softly.

"But because you did not, you have lost Ishaq." He drew a deep breath. "And by this time tomorrow I will have lost _everything_!" His voice was anguished. "Everything, Akila! With you gone, there is no reason for me to live any longer! _Could you not have waited?_ "

He collapsed with his head in his hands, and across from him Akila gave up the struggle, bent her own head, and began to weep too.

"Jaffa, _Kree!_ " There was a jangle of metal from outside, and a flurry of shrieks from the women. Jack heard the sizzle as a pot was upturned onto the coals, and a smell of burnt stew followed soon after, carried on the breeze.

Without ceremony, the hangings at the tent's entrance were wrenched aside, and a Jaffa warrior forced his way in. He was as large as Teal'c, and his face could have been carved from obsidian. The mark on his forehead stood out sharply, and Jack couldn't repress a shiver from inside his recess. He'd hoped never to see that mark again.

With no word, the large Jaffa strode across the tent and seized the girl. Jack had to admire her courage. Despite her obvious terror, she made no sound. Her father, falling again to his knees and grabbing the Jaffa 's short skirt, began to beg and plead for her life, but for his pains all he received was a backhanded blow to the head, which sent him sprawling. The warrior, Akila clasped firmly in one hand, paused for a moment, then spoke.

"Come then. Follow us to Ra's temple." He laughed, an unpleasant sound. "See how he deals with those who betray him!"

Then he was gone, Akila with him, and Anum was raising himself to his feet, preparing to follow and beg further for her life.

Ra's inner sanctum looked just as Jack remembered it. Opulent, gilded, sumptuous, and very, very tasteless. There wasn't a Goa'uld alive who believed in minimalism, he thought wryly to himself. Ra was one of the very worst. And when he had been ousted here on Earth _(sometime soon? Possibly, but surely not soon enough to save Akila)_ he had relocated the whole horrible pastiche to Abydos.

The Jaffa had dragged Akila and her father, their hands bound behind them, into the room, and had forced them to kneel in front of the great throne, set at the far end on a raised pedestal. Akila had a defiant look pasted on her face. Anum, kneeling beside her, kept his head bowed, and all Jack could see therefore was the bare knees of the Jaffa surrounding them, standing guard until Ra should deign to grace them with his presence. At the back of the room clustered village folk, some of whom had come to make offerings, some merely to witness whatever might happen here today.

They didn't have long to wait. A pair of nubile serving girls ( _always with the nubile_ , thought Jack, disgustedly. _Why should a snake care?_ ) held the tapestries at the back entrance to the temple open, their heads bowed. Moving slowly, as befitted his status as a god, Ra, over-the-top gold headdress firmly in place, entered the room, pausing regally with one hand upraised. On cue, the Jaffa bowed their heads, murmuring "my Lord' like a breath of wind passing through the throne room. With a maid on either side, holding his hands steady, Ra sank onto his throne, flicking his fingers to waft them away. With heads still lowered meekly, they disappeared back behind the curtains.

"Who is brought before your god today?"

The voice was the characteristic deep, inhuman growl of the Goa'uld, and Jack felt his adrenaline rise in response. Still Anum stayed still, head bowed.

The First Prime, the large Jaffa who had come to fetch Akila earlier that day, stepped forward.

"It is the traitoress, my Lord." He cast a disparaging look at Akila who was still staring straight ahead. "Show humility before your god!" He struck her a harsh blow to the back of the head, and she fell forward, landing dazed on her side. The First Prime pulled her roughly upright again, and addressed Ra. "She who dared to seduce your chosen one, my Lord." He indicated the silent Anum. "And her father"

Ra hissed, a horrible sound which echoed through the room.

"Girl." He had risen, and was standing in front of Akila. "How dare you usurp that which was rightfully mine? Which I had chosen for myself?" Jack could feel the rage emanating from him. "I punished him for his insolence in turning to any other than his god." Ra's voice was low and vehement. "Now I shall punish _you,_ " he turned the great gilded mask, and the painted eyes stared at Jack. "And your father shall witness your death as punishment for having spawned such a traitorous child."

The hand came up, the ribbon device gleaming against the palm. Jack winced, bracing himself for what was to follow. Anum, who had raised his head at Ra's words, saw the device and threw himself forwards, his hands scrabbling at the feet of the Goa'uld before him.

"No! No, my lord, please spare her! She did not know, did not realise it was so wrong... Take me, take me instead. It is my fault. I raised her. I have failed to teach her respect." His voice was ragged. "Take me instead, I beg of you!"

Ra paused, and the mask swivelled again, looking at Anum. There was a pause. Then,

"You say it is your fault." Anum nodded eagerly, hands held up now in supplication. The huge mask began to fold up, individual sections peeling back, finally revealing the face of Ra. There was a subdued gasp from the Jaffa in the room, all of whom fell to their knees.

"You say it is your fault, that your daughter betrayed me with one of my chosen." Ra's voice and face were cold. Anum nodded again, less certainly now, a creeping sense of horror invading his mind. Ra's lips curved upwards in a cruel smile, and he turned away, raising his hand again.

"Then," and his voice was gloating, "I can think of no better punishment than letting you watch her die."

Anum recoiled in horror, and the ribbon device started to glow, streaming its light into Akila's vulnerable, upturned face. Her mouth opened and a high pitched scream left her lips as her eyes rolled back. Before her father 's (and Jack's) horrified eyes, Ra slowly increased the power of the device, his face fixed in a fiendish grin, made worse by the light reflected from the device against his sallow skin. The screaming stopped, but still Akila lived, swaying on her knees, and with a grunt of rage Ra increased the power again, torturing her, this time, beyond endurance.

A second later she had collapsed, bonelessly, to the floor - the light retracted back into the device and Ra closed his palm around it. For a second he regarded her body dispassionately, then, his eyes dismissing her, he gestured to his Jaffa.

"Clean this mess up."

And with that he turned and exited the room, his maid servants reappearing to escort him out. He did not once glance at Anum, and neither did he acknowledge the crowd at the back of the throne room.

Inside his recess, Jack was shaken to his core, filled with the impotent, gigantic fury which Ra had always induced in him. Killed for daring to love... it was obscene. Why hadn't she waited? Why hadn't they waited?

All of a sudden the lesson he was here to learn became clear to him, and he groaned. _Wait until love is allowed, wait until it doesn't affect the fate of anyone but yourselves. Remember the regulations...!_

He had waited, he and Carter. Sometimes he wondered how they had managed to wait for so long. Now he knew. This lesson was too harsh to be lightly cast aside.

The Jaffa moved forward to pick up Akila's body, but Anum, crawling shakily forward, stopped them by placing a hand on her arm.

"Please." His voice was a croak. "She is mine. I will take her home."

The Jaffa looked at each other, and then shrugged. Without a word they turned and left, following their master through the back entrance to the room. Within seconds, the only people who remained were Anum and two of the villagers who had witnessed the execution.

His bones creaking, and tears falling on his hands, Anum rose to his feet, and bent over slowly to pick up the body of his daughter. Her head lolled lifelessly against his shoulder and her eyes, still open, were already cloudy. Holding her close, he turned to leave, but, as he moved to the door, found his way blocked by the remaining villagers. One, a handsome man with dark curly hair and serious eyes, reached out a hand to him.

"I offer you my condolences. I was a witness here today to the murder of your daughter."

There was a pause. Jack was enough of an old hand to recognize an approach when he heard one: he wondered if Anum was too? If he responded with the standard "It is Ra's will" this man would back away, murmuring further platitudes. If he did not, if he agreed with the assertion of murder...

Anum slowly raised his head all the way up, to look the young man straight in the eyes. There was a heartbeat, and then he spoke.

"Yes. Her murder." His voice was steady, and his back was straight. His look dared the two men to call out, send for the Jaffa, report him to Ra. They did neither.

Instead, the second man came forward, to stand beside the first. Looking round to ensure they were alone, he reached up and pulled back his hood, revealing light brown hair, light skin, and a pair of deep, startlingly blue eyes. When he spoke, his Egyptian was oddly accented.

"My name is Daniel Jackson." The blue eyes were infinitely kind. "I am deeply sorry for your loss."

Inside his recess, Jack was shocked into immobility. Here was Daniel, standing before him, and it wasn't the momentary flash of a well known, well loved face passing across other features, either. There could be no doubt that this was indeed Daniel. And Jack, who had just witnessed the death of the girl housing the same soul Daniel carried, was utterly incapable of comprehending how this could be so.

The face in front of him, though, was older than the Daniel he remembered, more weathered. Like a man might look if he had spent years in a harsh climate, never free of worry or fear...

And then Jack remembered. The video tape recovered in the coptic jar. The SG-1 team speaking to them from 5000 years before. The pond with no fish. How easily he had dismissed that tape, pleased at a mission that had been completed with no work required from him. Pleased that nothing was going to interfere with the fishing trip he had planned. The fishing trip that had began as a team break and ended with him and Carter finally deciding that the chain of command had been broken by her deployment to Area 51 and his move to Washington. It was during that week that they had finally given in to the feelings they'd been suppressing for all those years...

Had he ever even thought about the team left behind in Egypt? Had they escaped his mind so thoroughly? Shamingly, yes. They had. He'd moved on. And here he was, in 3000BC-odd, face to face with a Daniel who was almost exactly like his own...

And who was speaking. Jack regrouped, and forced himself to concentrate.

"We too do not believe that Ra is a god." Daniel was speaking fast and urgently, in a low voice. "I come from a far distant place, and my friends were also murdered by the false god in this fashion. Katep's brother, too." Here he shared a look with his companion. Katep nodded, and Daniel continued.

"We are planning an uprising. Katep and I are the ringleaders." His face was serious. "We need as many recruits to our cause as we can find. We should be honoured if you would consent to join us."

There was barely a moment's pause before Anum nodded. Jack could feel the resolve stiffening the man's spine. "Yes. You may count on my support." Jack watched as Daniel's face broke into that trademark grin, the one that wrinkled his nose, and felt again a wave of homesickness sweep him. He missed his friends, dammit!

The grin suddenly morphed into an expression of alarm, and Daniel's mouth opened to speak. Before he or Katep could get out a word, however, Jack heard the stamp stamp stamp of approaching Jaffa footsteps, and Anum swung round.

"Why are you still here? You were told to leave this place!" Frowning, the Jaffa swung his staff weapon, catching Anum a glancing blow on the head, making him see stars and stumble backwards. He was caught by Katep and Daniel, who made soothing noises at the Jaffa, and began pulling Anum and his burden backwards, out of the temple.

Jack felt the blow, saw the stars, and couldn't seem to recover his equilibrium. He battled to stay conscious, but his awareness was fading again, pulling away from Anum, from Katep and from Daniel... moving on again. He saw Daniel looking concerned and a young woman rushing up at his shout. The look on her face as she reached his side reassured him immensely. However far away from home he was, his friend was not alone here...

 _I'm glad Sam and I waited_ was his last thought before darkness claimed him yet again.

**Chapter 15: Chapter 15**

**PX6-478 - The Blue Planet**

The holding area under the small courthouse on PX6-478 was cramped, and smelt unpleasantly of past inhabitants. SGs-1 and 3 had been frogmarched down the stairs, their weapons had been roughly taken away and they themselves had been herded into two of the little cells.

Separated only by bars, communication was possible, although the presence of three stolidly impassive Jaffa guards outside the cells took away the urge somewhat. The fact that Bra'tac had been separated from them and taken to an unknown location within the building was also extremely worrying, and Teal'c, in particular, wore a thunderous frown.

Cameron had been conferring sotto voce with Reynolds; with a nod he finished the conversation and came over to hunker down next to Sam and Daniel.

"Well, it was Barnes who managed to dial out and get home, obviously." His gaze took in the remaining three members of SG-3. "Thing is, Reynolds thinks he may have taken a hit before he went through." He grimaced. "Hope he's well enough to let the SGC know what happened here."

Sam sighed and shifted uneasily, trying to get comfortable on the cold stone floor. Daniel scooted over to give her more space.

"It doesn't really matter." She gave up the struggle, and drew up her legs awkwardly. "General Landry will have known we needed back-up as soon as Barnes came through the Gate. Plan C would have been instantly activated."

Daniel stirred. "C. Get ambushed by hostile Jaffa on arrival, exchange fire and get thrown in skanky jail? I am glad to know there's a plan to all this, Sam."

Carter chuckled, then sighed.

"We had to look at every possible eventuality. We got as far as Plan G, then the scenarios started looking a little wild."

"Anyway." Cam was keen to bring the conversation back to the present. "We can expect back-up soon, then?"

"There will be no 'back-up'."

The voice came from the entrance to the underground room, causing all heads to swivel towards it. A tall Jaffa stood just outside the doorway. As they watched, he ducked his head to enter, and fixed them with a gaze which could only be described as scornful.

"Your plan was faulty." His eyes swept over their faces, and came to rest on Teal'c's. The look of scorn intensified. "Lor'ac has ordered that the Chappa'ai be kept actively engaged. Your rescue teams will be unable to dial in."

Vala had come over to join them, and was eying the Jaffa with evident distaste. " _Back-up_ teams, Hercules," she murmured, sniffing slightly. "We'll manage our own rescue, thank you very much."

"Shhhh." Sam's voice was gossamer light. "Don't antagonise the tame beasts before we have to."

But the Jaffa had lost interest. Focusing again on Teal'c, he demanded, "Come! Lor'ac wishes to speak with you alone." He gestured to the largest of the guards, who stepped forward and opened the cell door with one of a bunch of keys. Vala's eyes glittered.

Teal'c inclined his head. "Indeed." His voice was ominously polite. "I would have expected nothing less." Ducking his head in turn, he followed the other Jaffa out of the room, with merely a quick glance back, from under his eyelashes, at his teammates still in the cells.

The outer door clanged shut.

Cam exhaled, a long doleful breath of air. "Well, that's going to make life difficult." He twisted round to look at his team. "Guess we'll have to do this without help, guys."

But Carter was shaking her head, grinning, and Cam's face suddenly reflected new hope. He leaned forward, making sure his back was between them and the guards. "What? What have you got up your sleeve? Why don't I know about it?"

"You've been off world a lot lately." Sam was speaking so quietly it was almost a whisper. "I, however, have been spending a lot of quality time in the lab." She paused for effect. "Working on a device to allow us to store the dialing code and then speed dial a distant gate before it can be re-activated from the other end." Laughing at Cam's comically surprised look, she spread her hands. "Ta da!"

"And this is finished? Ready to go?"

"Yes. General Landry wouldn't have okayed this mission without it."

Alongside her, Daniel was shaking his head at Cam's disbelief. "Oh, ye of little faith..." He leaned in and spoke with mock severity. "You should know by now, Mitchell. Sam _always_ has a plan."

Cameron whistled softly, and grinned in turn. "Yeah, and a damned good thing too. I'll just let Reynolds and his guys know that the cavalry _will_ be coming." His grin dimmed. "Let's hope Teal'c' and Bra'tac are holding their own out there."

Back at the SGC, Major Barnes had been patched up and pronounced fit for duty in record time. Leaving the infirmary, he hurried back to the Gate Room to join SG teams 4 and 6, and accompanying Marines, for the trip back through the Gate to PX6-478. In the control room above, Sergent Harriman had carefully hooked up Carter's new machine, and was counting under his breath as the latest window of opportunity drew closer. His sharp eyes noted Barnes arriving in the Gate Room below, and his weren't the only ones.

"All units ready to deploy now, Chief?" General Landry came to stand behind him, and, at his nod, leaned over and took the intercom microphone in his hand.

"Any minute now, people. Bring them home, and Godspeed."

The device began flashing... and a second later the wormhole disengaged. The chevrons began activating, considerably faster than they had previously, and Walter couldn't help a chuckle. Behind him, Landry too was smiling.

Chevron 7 locked: the wormhole engaged. In less than half a minute the crowd in the Gate Room was gone. The General stood with Walter for a further moment, waiting until the event horizon popped out of existence. Then he sighed, and went back to his office to await developments.

"I had hoped that you, at least, would see sense, and join us in our cause. Despite your years as a traitor to the Jaffa, we would welcome you back." Lor'ac was attempting a reasoned argument; the weapons and leather bindings hanging on the wall behind him indicated that this mood might change.

Teal'c's reply was caustic. "There will never again be a time, Lor'ac of Kal'ash, when I ally myself with fools and power mongers. The death many years ago of Apophis should have convinced you of that."

He regarded the other Jaffa disparagingly. "But you are young. Perhaps you do not recall that great battle, and the great victory that set us on the path to freedom."

Lor'ac flushed angrily. "I remember it well," he retorted, his voice louder than necessary in the small room. "We were informed by our training master of your _victory."_

"I take it you do not feel that that is the correct word to describe our achievement?" Teal'c's voice was dangerously smooth. Lor'ac failed to notice, and gesticulated wildly with the staff weapon he carried.

"Oh, it is all very well to displace the false gods! But what have we in place of the greatness we experienced at their sides? A babbling bunch of old fools sitting around tables, making alliances with races that were fit only to be subjugated in the Jaffa's glory days! When we could have the power that the Goa'uld had! It is ours for the taking - if only our leaders did not lack the courage to do so!"

Teal'c snorted, and deliberately turned his back on the younger man.

"I see the problem now." His voice floated back to Lor'ac. "You are insane. It is a great shame when one who obviously held such promise loses his mind so completely."

Lor'ac growled, driven almost beyond words by this measured taunt.

"I, insane? I, who have managed to capture the famed SG-1, and who have them secured in my cells as we speak? I, who have managed to keep the Chappa'ai dialed out to ensure there will be no rescue attempt? You call me insane?"

Teal'c replied conversationally, "The Taur'i have ships. They will be coming," and at this Lor'ac laughed, a high, gleeful giggle that raised both Teal'c's eyebrows with its madness.

"But the Taur'i ships will _not_ arrive before my transport does! And when I have loaded you and your pathetic _allies_ into it, and displayed you as my prisoners to all the Jaffa, my movement will have grown so strong that no-one will be able to stop us taking the worlds we want, the slaves we want... Seeing the mighty SG-1 humbled will ensure my victory!"

As his last words died away, there was a muffled sound of staff weapon blasts, followed by the unmistakable pop pop pop of machine gun fire. Lor'ac, the light of his mad rhetoric still shining in his eyes, was momentarily distracted, his head shooting up to catch the noises from the outside.

It was the only opening Teal'c needed. Within seconds he was across the room, and Lor'ac found his staff weapon removed from his hands, twisted expertly through the air and pulled tight across his neck.

Then Teal'c spoke.

"I must confess that I had hoped to find a rogue Goa'uld directing this operation." His voice was low and vehement. "Perhaps a minor false god we had failed to eliminate." He pulled the staff weapon tighter, and Lor'ac's hands gripped his, trying desperately to pry the fingers loose. Teal'c's grip was vicelike.

"I was hoping for this as it burns my heart to think that a fellow Jaffa, one for whom we fought and sacrificed, could think that this was an acceptable goal for our people." Lor'ac made a sound deep in his chest, and Teal'c, a light sweat breaking out on his brow, gritted out, between his teeth, " _My hope was vain_."

Lor'ac redoubled his efforts to escape, with every struggle cutting his air supply further. However, struggle he did, kicking his legs ever more frantically until finally the lack of oxygen reaching his brain told, and he slumped, unconscious. Teal'c, breathing heavily, made sure he would present no further danger, then allowed his limp form to slide to the floor, and began methodically binding his wrists and feet together.

Down below them in the cells, the walls were too thick for the sound of the increasingly fierce fight taking place above ground to penetrate. However, although their weapons had been taken away, the Jaffa had not bothered to remove their radios, and the silence was suddenly broken by Mitchell's crackling into life.

Nothing was said, and the static lasted mere moments, but it was enough. The signal had been received loud and clear - back-up teams were on the planet.

A split second after the radio began crackling, Cameron had faked a cough, and the guards were none the wiser. SGs-1 and 3, however, were immediately on high alert, muscles tensed for action, eyes scanning for a way to get out of the dungeon and join the battle above. Locked in, and with no weapons, the options were admittedly limited.

Vala suddenly yawned, patting her mouth and exhaling audibly. Rolling her shoulders, she reached up and pulled the elastic band out of her ponytail, shaking her hair loose over her shoulders. Her movements caught the eye of the guards: once she was sure she had their attention, she sashayed over to the bars and leaned against them, yawning again. The guards, as if hypnotised, drew closer. Her team, no less fascinated, remained motionless, waiting to see what she would do next.

"I'm so booooored , boys."

Her voice was a purr, and she ran her hands over and through her long dark tresses. Carter, amused, half expected her to lick the back of her hand next, and use it to smooth the tumbled waves. Vala, in kitten mode, was pretty much irresistible to all men. Even Daniel, who had seen this many times before, was gripped.

The young Jaffa guards were no match for her wiles. Eyes glued, they came closer. Vala's grin widened.

"Let's play a game." Her voice was low and seductive, promising delights beyond imaginings to the lucky winner of any game she might be a part of. She inclined one finger, slowly, towards herself. "Come closer, and I'll explain the rules."

Mesmerised, the guards were now clustered round her, and Vala chuckled deep in her throat. "Boys, boys...," she reached through the bars with one hand and caressed the cheek of the one nearest her, who had the bunch of keys hooked onto his belt. Sam, sharp eyed, noticed her other hand steal into the pocket of her BDU trousers, and wondered what on earth she had planned.

In one swift move Vala brought her left hand up, clutching a small, innocuous looking tube. A lipstick? Sam wondered briefly how that was going to help her, and then she heard a faint hiss, once, twice, three times, and the guards were stumbling backwards, hands to their faces, yelling incoherently. Vala, with lightning sharp reflexes, snatched the keys from the first guard as he crumpled, and unlocked the door while the others were still reeling around, blinded. Ushering SG-1 out, she searched for the correct key and unlocked the second cell; in the meantime Cam and Daniel had neatly bundled the stricken guards inside and locked the door securely behind them.

The switcharound had happened so fast that less than five minutes had elapsed since the radio first crackled into life. Cameron, mindful of Jaffa elsewhere in the building, was thumbing the switch and communicating in a low tone with the teams on the ground. Carter was rummaging through the chests on the far side of the room, where their weapons had been carelessly thrown, and was passing out guns and zats. Daniel was peering through the door, covering Cam and SG-3's exit and holding Vala, who was eager to go, back.

"Vala, what was that stuff?" Sam came over with the last few weapons and handed them over, clipping her P-90 back onto her belt. "Some sort of biological weapon? How on earth did you get your hands on it?" She coughed, feeling a prickling sensation in her throat and eyes, and moved hurriedly away from the bars of the cell.

Vala beamed, and fluffed her hair again, before tying it back into its ponytail.

"Mace, darling." She brandished the cylinder. "Marvelous stuff. Ordered it online."

She watched Daniel's and Sam's faces breaking into smiles as they processed the information. "A girl can train with Teal'c all the hours of the day, but after Colfrinchan I've learned it still pays to have a secret weapon up one's sleeve for close combat situations." Her grin was now positively wicked.

Daniel, shaking his head in admiration, hooked his arm over her shoulders and pulled her into a brief hug. 'Vala Mal Doran, I don't think I've told you this often enough, but you are quite something, you know that?"

Her eyes lit up, and she snuggled just a little bit closer to him. "Darling, I hate to inform you, but that is in fact the very first time you've ever mentioned such a thing." Her tone was chiding. Daniel was unperturbed. "It is? How very remiss of me." He smiled down, his blue eyes meeting her grey ones. "I'll be sure to do it more often in the future."

The moment was broken by Colonel Reynolds' mock-severe voice from the doorway.

"Hey! You two can get a room when we're back on Earth. For now, we've a battle to join. Move out people!"

Tossing the unconscious Lor'ac, trussed like a Christmas turkey, over his shoulder, Teal'c exited the weapons room. Walking on his toes like a cat, he moved along the short corridor; the first door he opened revealed nothing more than a disheveled sofa and a battered desk and chair. However he had better luck with Door No 2. There, bound and gagged securely and with eyes flashing extreme displeasure, was Bra'tac. Without a word, Teal'c let his bundle slump unceremoniously to the floor, and set about untying him.

The battle outside was in fact pretty much over by the time SGs-1 and 3 made it to the surface. All that was needed was a hand with rounding up the last few determined Jaffa rebels hiding in the bushes around the jail, and the area was secured. Sam and Daniel were reloading their guns preparatory to going back in after Teal'c and Bra'tac when the selfsame appeared in the doorway, Lor'ac, still out for count, slung over Teal'c's shoulder. The odd light was starting to come back on in the houses surrounding the jail; the occasional brave householder even risked popping his head out from behind a curtain to confirm that the fireworks were, indeed, over.

Cameron surveyed the area, and rubbed his hands.

"As my grandma used to say," he paused at the assorted groans that arose from his teammates, "oh, all right, all right! Let's see... in the words, then, of the great Colonel John 'Hannibal' Smith, _I love it when a plan comes together_! Hopefully we've broken the back of this group today." His glance took in the Jaffa prisoners and the couple of SGC members who had sustained light injuries, and he grew serious.

"This has been a job well done, people." At his words there were nods from Colonels Carter and Reynolds, and Daniel added a 'hear hear' to the assorted cheers. The noise died away and Cam clapped his hands together once, jerking his head in the direction of the Stargate. "Get going and dial her up, Jackson. Let's go home."

**Chapter 16: Chapter 16**

"I want to go home. I want to go home. I _want_ to go _home_."

Jack couldn't help himself. The desperate mantra, repeated over and over again while he kept his eyes tight shut, came straight from his heart. He'd had enough bouncing about in and out of his past lives. He wanted so badly to wake up as himself, with Sam there, smiling at him, her blue eyes gleaming with joy. He wanted to see Daniel push his glasses up his nose and grin at him. He wanted to hear Teal'c say "Welcome home, O'Neill" in that inimitable, chocolate-brown voice. He wanted to go HOME dammit!

For some reason he had been certain that this time he would awaken in the SGC infirmary. That the trip to Ancient Egypt had been the last lesson he needed to collect before he could, in the words of his ascended Ascended Ancient, wake up from the coma as himself. He was so sure he was ready to resume his life, the busy life of a General in Washington, Colorado Springs, wherever his earthly journey took him...

...and yet. He had been traveling between lives for so long, had been away from his own life for so long, that there was a queer little fear deep in his heart, hidden away from sight. He didn't even dare articulate it, yet it existed. It had been the last thing on his mind as he left his life as Anum, the thing he had carried into the darkness with him...

A breath of air drifted past, and a second later he felt a light touch on his arm. He was sitting, legs drawn up, arms resting on his knees. Through closed eyes he could sense the quality of the light change, and the undersides of his eyelids suffused with a warm radiance. Still, he refused to open them, gritting his teeth resolutely.

"You are concerned that you have been away too long." The voice was cultured, accentless, but definitely female. And sympathetic. "You are terribly worried that all this has been merely a figment of your imagination, that when you do awaken from the coma, you will be somehow less than you were before. A drain on your friends. A burden to your wife."

"You can read my mind, too?" It wasn't his best effort, but the attempt at sarcasm was clear. The ancient being beside him chuckled.

"It does not take a mind reader to know that that is what you must be feeling," she chided him gently. "And the fact that you are here, with me, tells me that there is something holding you back from returning. Your next waking should have been in your own body, in your own time." She paused. " Your fear is, I think, preventing this."

Jack sighed, and gave in to the inevitable. He turned his head sideways and opened his eyes. Only a crack, mind you, just enough to glare balefully at the shimmering woman next to him. "So." His voice was matter-of-fact. "What do we do? I want to go home, but I _need_ to know that I'm not going back to be a, a," words failed him and he paused. When he spoke again his tone was weary. "I just really need to know that this whole harebrained Alice in Wonderland journey has done what it was supposed to do. When I get back, will I still be myself?"

There was a pause, and he watched her, from the corners of his eyes. She appeared to be having some sort of an internal debate with herself. Against his will, he found it rather amusing to watch. She would grimace, shake her head, then raise her eyebrows and nod slowly, then shrug... Eventually, she bit her lip, and met his eyes.

"What I'm proposing is unorthodox."

"And this entire journey you sent me on has had the ring of utmost orthodoxy about it right from the beginning." Jack kept a straight face, but she grinned reluctantly at him.

"Well, there is, of course, that to consider." With a fluid movement her avatar was off the ground and pacing in front of him. Jack remained seated, looking up at her.

"I can send you to one last time and place," she said eventually, her gaze returning to his. "My hope is that you will be reassured enough by this last trip to allow yourself to go home. And there is... one last soul, there for you to meet." Again she bit her lip and he realised that this was what had caused the debate over whether or not to allow him to travel again. He found he was curious, despite his weariness with the whole journey. Whose soul could she be referring to?

"After this, I can be of no further help to you." Her eyes held his resolutely. "You have done very well on this strange journey, General. You may not be feeling that way, but know this." She smiled, and her rather stern face softened. "You have my respect."

He opened his mouth to reply, but she held up a hand to silence him. This time, there was no archway. The shimmering radiance around him merely grew in intensity until it hurt his eyes to look at it, and he closed them against the dazzle. He heard her say softly, "Godspeed, Jack...," and then the last echoes of her voice were replaced by birdsong, and the noise of wind in trees.

And... children's voices? Yes, with high pitched laughter. He was sitting in shade, on some sort of a cushioned bench, but he was facing the sunshine. The quality of light seeping through to his eyes had barely changed. The scent though, ah, the scent of spruce woods, and the lapping of little waves against a shore - he was home! He was at his cabin in Minnesota, he just knew it. His heart beat rapidly in his chest, a tantara of happiness.

"Dazzled by the sun?" The woman's voice was familiar but he couldn't instantly place it. He heard her put down a tray on a table close by; he was close enough to hear a pinging noise as the rims of the glasses were jostled together, and the clinking of ice cubes in a jug. "It is bright today - perfect Indian summer weather for a birthday barbecue."

Something about the way she said _barbecue_ shot straight to his head; he stripped away the veneer of age that had confused him, and then he _knew_ who it was, with a great glad leap of joy.

General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

Samantha Carter- O'Neill was standing at the little picnic table, with her back to him. She was busy pouring something into a glass, and taking a long draught of it.

"Ah, that's good!" She turned, smiling. "Don't suppose I can interest you in a glass of home made lemonade?"

She was old. Really old. The blonde hair was all grey, long and still silky, tucked behind her ears. The fine bone structure he had always loved was as striking, the bones just a little closer to the surface now, the skin stretched over them all the more fragile for the delicate lines crisscrossing it. The blue eyes were still the colour of the sky above the cabin on this glorious Minnesota day, the fine webbing at their corners detracting not a whit from their beauty. He gazed at her, enthralled. A lyric from an old song drifted through his mind; he had no idea who it was by or where he remembered it from, but it was so totally applicable to the Sam standing before him... _you can't have too many good times, children, you can't have too many lines... take a good look at these crows feet, sitting on the prettiest eyes..._

She was still holding the lemonade out invitingly; the ice cubes had caused a thick condensation on the outside of the glass and fat drops of water were beginning to run down over her hand. When he didn't respond to her question her bright smile faded slightly, and she set the glass down to move towards him, leaning over the bench where he sat, semi-reclined.

"Jack? Are you feeling OK?" Her hand was cool against his forehead, and without thinking he reached up and grabbed it, bringing it down to his mouth and pressing a kiss against the palm. Holding still for a second, he breathed in her scent. It was just the same. Didn't matter that she was old - she still smelt like Carter. God, it was good to touch her!

"Charmer." Her voice was amused. "Is that meant to persuade me to hand you a beer instead?" She bent down to the cooler box under the bench, and came up with a can, which she popped and handed to him. "Don't tell Dr Vickers." Her voice was conspiratorial. "If you can't drink beer on your 90th birthday, when can you?"

Jack found his voice. " _90th_ birthday?" He glanced down at his hand, clutching the can. Sure enough, the liver spots and veins suggested venerable old age. "God, Carter, how'd I get to be so damn ancient?"

 _"_ How did any of us?" She shuffled herself down next to him on the bench, and leaned her head against his shoulder with a sigh. He brought his free arm up, around her shoulders, turning his head and breathing in the scent of her hair, overwhelmed by the mere fact of being here, with her. It was almost too much. The light glinted playfully off the lake, and dragonflies dipped and swooped. Jack found he had a lump in his throat threatening to dissolve into sobs.

He was saved from the indignity of weeping into Carter's lemonade by a loud yell. The sound of childish voices grew louder, and two small boys appeared round the side of the house, zigzagging about and yelling with glee. One held a large fish, and appeared to be threatening to drop it down the other's back. As they exited left, at speed, a slightly older boy poked his head out of the back door, his face breaking into a beam as he caught sight of them both.

"Granny Sam! Mom says she's put the apple pie in the oven." Against his shoulder, Sam nodded. He could feel her cheek creased up into a smile. The boy continued, merrily, "Granpa Jack? Are you having a good birthday?"

He had glossy brown hair, lightened in places by the sun to blonde streaks. His eyes were wide set and long lashed, and he had possibly slightly over a million freckles. And over his features, just for a second, Jack saw Charlie, as clear as day. The soul he loved so well, and had grieved for so deeply, shone out at him from from the green, green eyes, laughing, happy and _alive._ Jack, his heart thumping hard in his chest, felt the lump return, and involuntary tears spring into his own eyes. Mindful of the question he'd been asked, he nodded, raising his can of beer, and watched the kid's grin deepen. The youngster shook his head in mock disapproval, then turned at a shout from the front of the cabin, and was gone again, like quicksilver.

Jack swallowed hard, waiting for his heart rate to slow. Little wonder if the shock didn't kill his 90 year old self stone dead - no wonder the AAA had been concerned! But what an incredible revelation she had allowed him. Somehow, in this one lifetime, he was going to get a second chance. It was nothing short of miraculous.

"Who are all these kids?" His turbulent pulse was slowing again, the shock fading, and he was coming to a realisation. He had never felt more comfortable - sitting here, with Sam next to him. So at peace. His lake had never looked more beautiful. He wished he had a rod to hand, but otherwise, he thought contentedly, he wouldn't change a thing.

Sam shifted next to him, and he felt a laugh run through her body. "It's no good pretending to be going senile, Jack O'Neill. I know that mind of yours is still as sharp as a tack."

He played dumb. After all, he did it well. "Humour me."

She pulled back and looked at him, her gaze searching his face. He met her look blandly, revelling once again in the fact that she was there, with him, and eventually she shrugged, and snuggled back beside him. "The little menaces with the fish are Daniel's grandkids. Heaven knows where they'll hide it this visit - last time I found one in the woodbox. Three weeks later!" She shook her head against his shoulder, but her voice was fond, and he guessed the boys hadn't received much of a telling off from Granny Sam.

"And then Samuel is Cassie's grandson." She shifted her weight slightly, and turned to look at him. "Our great grandson. At least, the closest we ever came."

Jack smiled into her eyes. "He's a great kid."

Sam, reassured that he had been teasing her and was not in fact losing his mind, nodded her head. "He certainly is. All three of them are a joy."

 _Grandchildren. Cassie had a grandchild._ It suddenly struck him with force that although he was himself, in his own body, he was very much out of his time. He was over thirty years into his own future...

There was a sudden commotion from inside the kitchen, chattering and the rattling of plates and cutlery. "I can tell you the basic gist...," he recognised Daniel's voice, despite the tremor of old age overlaying it. "However, that was really ah, um," the voice shook slightly, and he coughed before resuming, sounding stronger, "that was my late wife's area of expertise. She spent a great part of her life engaged in the study of it. I have her journals here..." The words faded as Daniel moved away from the window.

Jack stirred. Thirty years, and they had obviously been full, happy ones. The cabin was overflowing with old friends and family, there were children everywhere, and Sam was nestled against him, humming quietly to herself. Seemed he hadn't been a burden after all. Perhaps it was safe to go home...

The back door opened again, and Teal'c appeared. His hair too was all grey now, Jack noted, but other than that, he looked pretty much the same. In his hands were two plates, piled high with a gooey chocolate cake. Jack's mouth began to water.

Teal'c's eyes lit up when he spotted them on the bench. "Samantha. O'Neill." He bowed his head in greeting, and the two of them followed suit, unselfconsciously. "I am sorry I have arrived so late." He stretched his hands out, a plate in each. "I come bearing cake."

"Ah, T," Jack took his with alacrity, and dug in. There had been no cake that he'd seen in any of his past lives. He'd missed cake. "You're forgiven." He took a large forkful, and sighed in ecstasy. "This is _good_!"

Sam laughed, and waved the second plate away. Teal'c set it carefully onto the bench, and offered her his hand to help her up. A warm glance passed between them as she accepted his aid and brushed herself off. "I must check on that pie." She glanced back at her husband. "Cake and beer. Nothing changes, Jack O'Neill."

With his mouth still full, he replied, "If you get to 90 and still haven't grown up, then you don't have to," and Sam, oblivious to her dignified status as Granny, giggled, and blew him a kiss. Teal'c, looking amused, nodded to Jack, and followed her inside.

He had had his fill of the cake for now. Setting it carefully down, he rested his head back against the wooden wall behind him, and closed his eyes. Family and friends. There was nothing more important than that. He wondered sleepily if that was his lesson for this life. If so, it was a good one. But, and he knew this now, he wanted the previous thirty years back. He wanted to live them, fully, with these people who were so important to him. He wasn't afraid any more.

It was time to go home.

**Chapter 17: Chapter 17**

**SGC**

It was a very disturbed Teal'c who made his way slowly through the corridors of the SGC a couple of days later. The Jaffa prisoners were ensconced in the cells below the main part of the facility, and he had been spending time, along with Bra'tac, interviewing each and every one. Lor'ac, as expected, had proved himself to be relatively insane, although high functioning enough, Teal'c reflected grimly, to have infected a large number of young Jaffa with his own particular brand of madness.

It was something one of these others had said to him that was exercising his mind today. This young man, Sep'rac, still carried a symbiote and, like many of the members of Lor'ac's movement, had refused to switch to tretonin. He was by no means insane, but the rot bit deep, and he refused at the present time to acknowledge any way other than that he had chosen. All very well, but it was his quietly spoken words at the close of the interview that were most worrying.

_You can not stamp this movement out. Even without Lor'ac's leadership, it will continue to grow. There are many of us, spread out over many planets and many sects. You will need to be careful, sholva, for we are always among you._

The illusion of the united Jaffa Nation was gone for good. The ideal he had cherished of each Jaffa working together to promote the good of the whole... he could no longer believe it was a possible reality.

When he had shared this knowledge, and his regrets, with Daniel Jackson, Daniel had sighed, then fixed him with a sympathetic look.

 _Welcome to true freedom, Teal'c. Each individual gets to choose their own path, even if it seems crazy to everyone else._ He'd rubbed his eyes tiredly. _Fun, isn't it?_

It was not. For some reason, Teal'c acknowledged, he had not anticipated this happening amongst his people. Despite spending over a decade on Earth, experiencing its turmoil and the differing views and opinions of its people, somehow, he had thought the Jaffa immune.

He had been wrong.

His path took him past Colonel Carter-O'Neill's lab, and he turned in at the door almost without thinking. Sam sat at her desk, the lamp pooling golden light over her papers. Her head was propped on one hand and her computer screen was scrolling data. As he watched, she blinked a few times then yawned, covering her face with her other hand.

"You are tired."

His voice was soft and his words didn't startle her. She did, however, pause, and swing her chair round to face him, with a smile.

"I am. I imagine you are too - have you had any luck yet with the prisoners?"

Teal'c sighed, and came all the way into the room.

"We know we have the ringleaders who planned the attack on Feydara, in which you and O'Neill were injured." His eyes lingered for a moment on a newly healed scar on the underside of her arm, and his expression hardened.

"However, it has become apparent that there are Jaffa scattered throughout the Nation who believe as these do." He drew a breath, and released it again. "It will not be as easy to eradicate this as I had hoped."

Sam stretched, and yawned again, belatedly remembering to cover her mouth. "Oops! Sorry, Teal'c, I'm tireder than I realised." She shook herself awake, and reached out a hand to lay on his arm. "You can't blame yourself for any of this. It was bound to happen once the Jaffa realised they were not fighting a single enemy any more. There will always be groups of people willing to hurt or kill others to achieve what they want."

They sat in silence for a moment, then Teal'c looked down to where her hand rested on his arm. Sam, noticing the path his eyes had taken, blushed and made to remove it quickly. But not quickly enough. Teal'c captured her fingers, and held on, forcing her to look up and meet his eyes.

"Samantha." His voice was low. "There is something I must say to you."

Taking the other seat and visibly steeling himself, he continued.

"I would never have revealed what transpired on board the Odyssey if it were not for the distressing circumstances in which we found ourselves: you and O'Neill injured, the Nation breaking apart, as it seemed to me." His voice was troubled. "I can not bear to think that my weakness has in some way impacted on our friendship. That is the very last thing I would wish to happen."

Sam looked down at their linked hands for a long moment, then back up at her old friend. Blue eyes met brown, and she could not be anything but honest. This was Teal'c, after all; he had known her for over 12 years now and would recognize a glib falsehood designed to reassure. He deserved the truth.

"Teal'c," she spoke softly, exploring the way forward. "I can't deny that I'd wondered, before, about what might have happened during all those years." She searched his face, looking for understanding. "And I meant what I said when I thanked you for being there, for me."

Again there was a pause, as she sought the right words, then she squeezed his hand and relinquished it, lifting her own to briefly cup his cheek. "Your friendship has meant more to me than I can possibly explain. The knowledge that we deepened that friendship, and were lovers... that's going to take a little getting used to, I won't lie to you. But, and this is important, Teal'c - it will never change the way I feel about you now. I will never respect or, or _love_ you less as my friend, for knowing what I know."

She grimaced at him. "Does that make sense? Do you know what I mean?"

Teal'c's face had relaxed, and he reached up, fetching her hand and laying it carefully on top of the desk.

"Indeed I do." He smiled, the small movement of his mouth reaching all the way to his eyes. "In the words of Jack O'Neill, it means, W _e're Good,_ does it not?"

Not trusting herself to speak, Sam simply nodded, and Teal'c, still smiling, rose and turned towards the door. As he reached it, he turned back. The smile fell away, and his face grew severe. Sam, with a qualm, wondered what had caused the change, and half rose from her chair.

"Now _you_ need to take rest, Colonel Carter-O'Neill." His voice was stern, but at his words Sam fell back, in relief. "You will be of no use to General O'Neill when he awakes if you can not keep your own eyes open."

With another small smile, and a little bow, he was gone. Sam, relieved of a tension she had been only peripherally aware of experiencing, stifled another great yawn and looked wearily at her notes. Shuffling the papers, she shook her head, and began to shut down her equipment for the night.

In the infirmary, one of the machines around General O'Neill's bed started beeping, and a line crawling across the surface of the screen suddenly sped up and began rising and falling in regular peaks and troughs. Startled, the nurse on duty pressed the button to call Dr Lam from her cubbyhole, where she had been snatching a few hours of well earned rest.

Blinking, Carolyn inspected the machine, pressed some buttons on another, and clasped her fingers around her patient's wrist. After a tense minute, her face broke into a smile, and she turned and spoke softly to the nurse beside her.

"Go and alert Colonel Carter-O'Neill, and see if you can find Teal'c and Dr Jackson." She turned back to Jack, then called out as the nurse left the room, "Oh, and my father too. Let General Landry know." Her smile was radiant. "General O' Neill is waking up."

All tiredness forgotten, Sam was bending eagerly over Jack's bed, his hand in hers. Behind her, Daniel and Teal'c had crammed into the little room, and taken up stations at the end of the bed.

"This is just normal sleep now?" Sam turned to Carolyn for confirmation, and the doctor nodded.

"Yes. The coma state has subsided, and he is sleeping peacefully. It would be best though if he were left to wake naturally." The last was said in a warning tone, and with a look at Daniel and Teal'c, who had been jostling to get comfortable. They had the grace to look abashed, but Sam didn't even noticed. All her attention was focused on Jack.

Swimming back towards consciousness, Jack found it hard to let go of the dreams he was entangled in. The image of a bright, laughing, dark eyed girl, her curls bouncing as she picked olives in a grove somewhere far away. The picture shifted, changed, and he was sharing a meal in a cool breeze next to a creek of some sort - Mevrouw Jansen raised her cup and smiled at him. Again the images morphed; he was stepping off a space craft of some kind, shaking hands with a chattering flunkey, all his attention caught by the vista of green grass and interlinking lakes before him.

Still he could see grass, but oh, he was dying... he could not walk a step further. Yet he must. Jenson was dead, and Wallis murdered, and he was all that remained. The sun beat down and the Japs drove by, mocking, laughing, and he could feel his own ribs pressing to exit the thin layer of skin still covering them... _oh Grandpa, oh Mom_...

And the dreams whirled him away and swirled him around...

Now he was straightening a long skirt, stiffening his resolve and holding his head high, presenting a paper to an audience made up mostly of other women but with some men too, scattered throughout the auditorium _ah, there he was! He had said he would come - her heart leapt in secret joy as she spied his dark head and aquiline features in a seat some rows back..._

Still in a skirt, no, it was a robe, and he had it kilted up above his knees as he waved his stolen _zat'ni'katel_ in a frenzy of triumph; above him the great pyramid ship rose and sped away... and they were free. As he turned around to yell his defiance, the scene changed again, melted away, became peaceful. There was his pond, and there was his rod. And there was Samuel, face screwed up in concentration, threading a worm onto a hook. In the background a voice was calling, sounding exasperated, _these sandwiches are curling up at the ends, young man! Tell Granpa Jack to take a break and come back here to the house..._

Deep in his subconscious mind, Jack stirred.

_Sam. That's Sam's voice. I need to wake up. I'm on my way home._

Beeping noises, the rustling sound of sheets, and muffled voices. The smell of disinfectant and then a scent so achingly familiar it brought a rush of blood to his brain and quickened his heartbeat; he heard the machine whir and the beeps speed up.

General Jack O'Neill opened his eyes.

There were nurses, Hank's doctor daughter, lights dimmed specially, the green curtains of the SGC infirmary - but he took in none of these.

He saw Sam smiling at him, blue eyes gleaming with joy. He saw Daniel, overcome, push his glasses up and grin at him, his nose wrinkling. And he watched Teal'c, the broadest smile he had yet seen on the man stretched across his face, bow slightly, and say, in that inimitable chocolate-brown voice,

"Welcome home, O'Neill."

And Jack, home from long wanderings, could not find his voice to reply, just stretched out his hands and tried to catch hold of them all at once, and hold them tight.

It was the following day, and Jack, having been filled in on the hunt for the rebel Jaffa, had been outlining the bare bones of his journey home for the past few hours. The little crowd in the infirmary room had sat rapt, Daniel failing even to notice that Vala was perched on his knee for most of the morning.

"Wow." Mitchell's eyes were alight with interest. "It is fascinating what the mind can do, isn't it? All those stories yours showed you while it was healing: you'll have to write them down, you know, Sir."

Jack raised an eyebrow, and wrapped his arm around Sam a little more tightly. "Stories? You don't think any of it was real, Mitchell?" He gazed pointedly at the younger man, and grinned as Cameron began to splutter a bit. "Well, ah, General, I mean, you can't really believe you visited your past lives? Um, can you?" He began to look a little desperate. "I mean, me as your grandfather; it just seems well, a bit unlikely."

Petering out, he elbowed Daniel in the ribs, eliciting a startled "eh?", and incurring a dirty look. To Cam's relief, however, he picked up the thread of the conversation.

"After all we've seen, it's tempting to believe it all happened. I, for one, am fascinated by the idea of some of the Ancients evolving even further and advancing to higher planes of consciousness..." He drifted off, eyes dreamy, and Jack thought with some trepidation of the AAA's words. _I, for one, do not relish being the object of his study_... Then Daniel sighed and returned his gaze to Jack's, saying, regretfully, "However, in real terms, it does seem a trifle unlikely."

Jack said nothing, but held Daniel's gaze. He thought of Cecily, and her envoy, and wondered when, if ever, he should share the full story. The thought made his grin deepen. Daniel, unsure of what was causing this, squirmed.

"I think it's fascinating that you met the Daniel stuck in Ancient Egypt." Sam had been entranced by his tale, hanging on to every word. He was looking forward to going over it all in more detail with her later. Much, much later... As soon as he was allowed out of this infirmary bed he had plans for his wife. To his great delight, she had whispered something very similar to him, just after Dr Lam had declared that his brain functions had returned to normal and that there appeared, remarkably, to be no lingering ill effects of the coma. From her tone, he gathered he was something of a medical miracle.

And speaking of Dr Lam, here was the good doctor herself, frowning as she tried to make her way through the throng. Teal'c, stepping courteously out of her way, accidentally knocked over a shelf containing bedpans; the resulting clanging deepened her displeasure.

"I thought I said General O'Neill was to be allowed to _rest."_ Her voice brooked no argument, and Jack wondered idly if they taught that tone in medical school. It certainly had the required effect. Teal'c backed out of the door, murmuring apologies, followed in quick succession by Mitchell. Vala jumped off Daniel's lap, beamed at Sam, and waved chirpily at Jack, before saying firmly to Daniel "I'll see you outside in half an hour, remember?" and skipping out just behind Carolyn.

Jack cocked his head, and Sam too looked intrigued. "Daniel? Half an hour - _outside_?"

"Oh! Well." Daniel cleared his throat, and looked uncomfortable. "We have a date." He went red as Sam made a surprised noise, and Jack had to laugh. 'A date?" Daniel was so easy to tease, sometimes. "What, candles, wine, chocolates... that sort of date?"

"Oh no!" Daniel was quick to deny it, too quick perhaps. He pulled his car keys out of his pocket, and heaved a heavy sigh. Looking glum, he muttered "I've promised to teach Vala to drive," then, grinning slightly, he made a hasty exit followed by Sam and Jack's peals of laughter.

"Oh my, the world might really end this time." Sam wiped her eyes, then leaned in for a long, lingeringly passionate kiss. "God, I've missed you."

Jack held her close for a second longer, reveling in her scent and the warmth of her skin so close to his. "Me too," he breathed into her ear, making her shiver delightfully. "Oh, me too!"

"Ahem." The cleared throat came from the doorway where Dr Lam stood again, chart in her hand, ready to take readings from the last few machines still wired up to her patient. Sam, faintly pink, disentangled herself, and with one last smoldering glance and a whispered promise of "later" she was gone. Jack submitted to being prodded and poked and nodded approvingly over, and then Carolyn left too, and he was alone for the first time since he had awakened, finally, home in his own body and his own time.

He lay back against the pillows, and studied the room, looking especially into the corners. Despite there being patently nothing there at all, a smile played around the curves of his mouth.

"I know you're there. You can show yourself now."

Still there was nothing, the room, if anything, appearing even emptier than before.

"Oh, come on." He spread his hands out. "Don't make it look as if I'm talking to myself here!"

The room remained resolutely empty. If it had been a person, it would have put its hands behind its back and whistled innocently. Jack sighed theatrically.

"Have it your own way, then." He ostentatiously closed his eyes almost all the way, leaving just a slit through which to view the room. _There._ A faint shimmer, almost invisible against the surgical green of the curtains, but unmistakable nevertheless.

"Thank you."

It was softly said, but heartfelt, and Jack could swear he heard a faraway chuckle in reply. The shimmer faded away, leaving just the familiar and, until now, under-appreciated infirmary room. He was home, and he was himself. It just didn't get any better than this.

With a smile, General Jack O'Neill closed his eyes.

END


End file.
